UCLA Fielding School of Public Health recognizes seven distinguished alumni as the 2025 “Hall of Fame” honorees
Recipients include Dr. Anne Rimoin, professor in the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Epidemiology.
Seven distinguished graduates of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health have been named as members of the school’s “Hall of Fame” for 2025, recognizing their work since graduation as having a major impact on public health, both in Los Angeles and globally.
“Public health improves the lives of millions of people, and it connects human to human and nation to nation,” said UCLA’s Chancellor Dr. Julio Frenk, distinguished professor in UCLA Fielding’s Department of Health Policy and Management, who spoke at the Dec. 8 event on campus at UCLA, co-sponsored by the UCLA Fielding Public Health Alumni Association. “This year’s Hall of Fame inductees embody this global nature of public health. They demonstrate how it brings people together across languages and cultures for a common good.”
The 2025 UCLA Fielding Hall of Fame inductees include:
- Dr. Patience Afulani (MPH ’11, PhD ’15, Community Health Sciences), currently an associate professor in the Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Reproductive Sciences and Epidemiology & Biostatistics departments at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Afulani is principal investigator of the Person-Centered Equity Lab at UCSF, where she leads several research projects, including the “Caring for Providers to Improve Patient Experience” cluster-randomized control trial in Ghana and Kenya. Afulani was recognized with the Emerging Professional Award.
- Mary Anne Foo (MPH ‘93, Community Health Sciences), the executive director and founder of the Orange County (California) Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA), established in 1997. OCAPICA is the largest Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander nonprofit organization in the county, reaching more than 80,000 individuals annually. She is a Hall of Fame Award recipient.
- Dr. Na He (PhD, ’03, Epidemiology), currently a professor of epidemiology and the dean of School of Public Health at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He has extensive research and implementation experience in HIV epidemiology, prevention and intervention and has served as a consultant for China nationwide anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns since 2004. He is a Hall of Fame Award recipient.
- Dr. Cozzette Lyons-Jones (MPH ’18, Health Policy and Management), serves as chief medical officer at Watts Healthcare Corporation in Los Angeles, where her leadership has driven digital health innovations, including expanded remote patient monitoring, AI-enabled diabetic retinopathy screening, and enhanced clinical documentation tools, as well as a key partnership with Charles R. Drew University, leading to the launch of Internal Medicine and Pediatric Sports Medicine residency clinics at Watts. She is a Hall of Fame Award recipient.
- Dr. Anne Rimoin (MPH ’07, Community Health Sciences) is professor in the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Epidemiology and Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health. Her research focuses on emerging and vaccine preventable diseases, including studies of COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, Mpox and vaccine preventable diseases of childhood. She is a Hall of Fame Award recipient.
- Dr. Manuel Roberto Calderón Pinzón (MPH ’84, Health Policy and Management), is a physician, public health leader, and global development strategist with more than 30 years of service across more than 20 countries, including service as vice minister of public health in Guatemala and as a senior advisor for HIV/AIDS in Central America and the Caribbean for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and World Health Organization (WHO). He is a Hall of Fame Award recipient.
- Dr. Ritu Sadana (MS ’87, Health Policy and Management) is a global leader in public health who has shaped the WHO’s strategies on ageing and equity, including leading the first WHO Global Strategy on Ageing and Health, conceived the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021–2030 - endorsed by the UN General Assembly - and led development of the Decade of Healthy Ageing: Baseline Report, documenting strategies to accelerate country-level progress. She received the Lester Breslow Lifetime Achievement Award.
The latest honorees join a list of more than 90 UCLA Fielding School of Public Health alum, ranging from the classes of 1963 to 2019. Nominees are considered by a committee made up of the UCLA Fielding Public Health Alumni Association Board and faculty members.
That legacy, of all UCLA Fielding Hall of Fame inductees, is key to the enduring impact of the school on public health around the globe, said Dr. Ron Brookmeyer, dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a distinguished professor of biostatistics.
“We are living in a time of unprecedented challenges and uncertainties for universities and for public health, and organizations like the Public Health Alumni Association are more important now than ever,” Brookmeyer said. “Whether your career is well-established or if you’re just starting out - your presence here today strengthens our collective resolve to improve public health in Los Angeles, in California, and beyond."
