It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Population Health Sciences. We look forward to getting to know you over the next two years, and supporting your academic growth through our program. Here within DPHS you will find a wealth of resources, including world-renowned research faculty and operational staff who bring expertise from a wide range of fields including behavioral science, epidemiology, health economics, health services research and policy, and implementation science.
During your time at Duke, we encourage you to take full advantage of all that the program has to offer. Whether through coursework, during your MS degree capstone project, or in working with your advisor, you’ll have many chances to develop and sharpen your research and analytic skills. The Master of Science program will afford you exciting opportunities to implement real patient-level solutions and work with big, complex data to measure the health of populations. Challenge yourself, and you’ll experience incredible learning through your work with DPHS faculty. Your instructors are eager to champion your success as students, and serve as resources and allies in your scholastic journey.
We are thrilled that you’ve chosen our department through which to tackle some of the most pressing health challenges facing our nation. By becoming a population health scientist, you will change the world, and improve society by using research and data to reduce disparities, implement health innovations, measure true health needs, and link communities and healthcare systems.
Please keep in touch with me during your time here in the MS program. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
Lesley Curtis, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Population Health Sciences
Director, Center for Pragmatic Health Systems Research, Duke Clinical Research Institute
Professor in Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine