Africa Public Health Champion Addresses UAlbany

ALBANY, N.Y.  -- Alumnus Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, ’91, the first graduate of the UAlbany School of Public Health’s master’s in public health (MPH) program and now a prominent public health leader in Africa, will discuss Attaining the United Nations Global Millennium Development Goals by 2015: Opportunities and Challenges on Thursday, Dec. 9 at 3:30 p.m. in the School of Public Health Auditorium on UAlbany’s East Campus in Rensselaer. His talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the School of Public Health's 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speaker Series.

Musinguzi first came to UAlbany in 1990 to enter the School of Public Health’s new MPH program. He held a medical degree from Makerere University Medical School in Uganda and was already working as a public health physician to fight AIDS in his native land.

After obtaining his UAlbany School of Public Health degree, Musinguzi returned to Uganda to wage an effective and compassionate national response to AIDS. He has become an international voice on behalf of reproductive health and family planning, as well as HIV/AIDS. He now serves as regional director of Partners in Population & Development of the Africa Regional Office Statistics House in Uganda.

“The School of Public Health is honored to have Jotham as an alumnus and as a distinguished speaker during our 25th anniversary celebration,” said Dean Philip Nasca. “For more than twenty years, he has been a leader in Africa in the fields of population studies, the fight to stem HIV/AIDs, maternal and child health, and in many important areas of reproductive health.”

“Jotham is one of our program’s most distinguished graduates, and it was a fascinating coincidence that he happened to be the first one,” said the first SPH dean, Dr. David Carpenter. “It was certainly a good standard to set for everyone else. Since then, we have had at least ten students from Uganda, and all because they were recruited by Jotham.”

For many years director of Uganda’s Population Secretariat, Musinguzi is currently a trustee of the Population Council of New York and a board member of the Africa Population and Health Research Centre based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has been president of Uganda Medical Association, chairman of the International Council on Management of Population Programmes, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and has represented Uganda at most major international meetings, including many U.N. summits.

As a member of these groups, Musinguzi has consistently advocated for inclusion of strong and clear language on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS in all official documents.

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