Posted 8/29/2008

Aelion to head School of Public Health at University of Massachusetts Amherst

Aelion

Dr. C. Marjorie Aelion will become the new dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Jan. 1, 2009.

Aelion has been associate dean for research at the Arnold School of Public Health for the past two years. She is an alumna of UMass Amherst where she received a Fulbright Advanced Student Award.

“The School of Public Health and Health Sciences has great potential and I am honored to be chosen to work with the faculty, staff, and students to realize that potential,” said Aelion. “I look forward to becoming an integral part of the UMass community, which has been so welcoming to me. In many ways, I feel I am coming home.”

Arnold School Acting Dean Dr. Tom Chandler remembered coming to the Arnold School, “ . . . SPH on almost the same day back in 1991, and we have worked closely together on multiple joint projects over the past 20 years.

“I will miss her daily friendship and support, as I am sure many of you will; but this is such a wonderful opportunity for her that I am sure she could not possibly have passed it up. Please join me in congratulating Marjorie on yet another superb accomplishment in her career, and wish her well.”

Aelion’s research is in the area of environmental contamination. She received the National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellow Award, one of 30 awarded nationally in all fields, in 1993.

She currently has a National Institutes of Health R01 research award in collaboration with a faculty member in the USC School of Medicine to examine metals in soils and their potential associations with children’s health outcomes.

She has received funding from several federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Aelion served as graduate director for the University of South Carolina’s environmental health sciences department from 2003-06.

In 2002 she was a Fulbright Faculty Scholar as well as a visiting professor at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands and at the Eccole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

She has been a professor of environmental health sciences at South Carolina since 2001 and was an associate professor from 1997-2001 and assistant professor from 1991-97. Aelion was also the assistant director of the Marine Science Program from 1999-2000.

In 1997 Aelion was a visiting scientist at Chelyabinsk State Technical University in Russia, and in 1995 she was a visiting scientist at Irkutsk State University in Russia. She has been an associated faculty member of the School of the Environment at South Carolina since 1995 and an associate faculty member with the Marine Science Program since 1993.

Aelion was an appointed faculty member at U.S. Geological Survey in Columbia, S.C., from 1991-94 and was a hydrologist from the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division in Columbia, S.C., from 1988-91.

Aelion earned her bachelor’s degree from UMass Amherst in 1980, a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983, and a doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1988.