On Friday, June 12, Geisel School of Medicine celebrated the academic accomplishments of 159 MPH and MS Health Sciences Education graduates, including the first online master’s degree cohort in implementation science.
Carlos del Rio, who gave the Investiture address, honored the graduates' perseverance and framed their chosen fields as quietly essential.
Del Rio, the H. Cliff Sauls Distinguished Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, placed the graduates at a historic crossroads in healthcare defined by pandemics, climate change, health inequities, and growing distrust in institutions.
He praised AI's transformative potential in public health citing early detection of disease outbreaks, precision diagnostics, and closing care gaps, but stressed that public healthcare practitioners must be its ethical stewards guarding against algorithmic bias.
“Technology alone does not improve health or healthcare. People do,” he said. “You have been trained to think critically, ethically, and systemically to see the human story behind every data point.”
Warning against burnout, del Rio urged graduates to see their own wellbeing as a professional obligation. “Burnout is real, and the culture of constant sacrifice has no place in a profession that depends on clear thinking and human connection,” he said. “Ask for help. Rest when you can. The work you do matters too much for you to lose yourself in it.”
In conclusion, he asked the graduates to commit to equity, humility, the courage to choose what is right over what is merely efficient, and to draw on their original motivation whenever they feel uncertain.
Student speaker, Nupoor Marwah MS ’26, reflecting on a quote from Marie Curie, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less,” said the graduates' scientific training equips them to sit with uncertainty rather than be paralyzed by it.
“In those brief moments of pause,” she said, “I’m reminded that our training has given us a way to quiet some of the fear that comes with uncertainty, especially in public health and medicine.”
She cited how each of the medical school’s health sciences programs contributed to a distinct and essential role in advancing public health and built a community that can sit with fear, study it, meet it with clarity, dismantle it, and replace it with knowledge.
“Dartmouth challenged us. And in doing that, gave us the tools to be independent thinkers. It pushed us. And that made us resilient scientists ready to face the challenges of our time, even in the face of fear.”
Health Sciences Education Investiture Photo Gallery:
As both an alumna of the Master of Public Health program and a faculty member, Shontay Delalue MPH ’24, senior vice president, Dartmouth College, spoke about facing the extraordinary complexity of this moment in time.
“Yet I remain deeply hopeful because I know who is entering the workforce today,” she said. “I see a generation of professionals who understand that data matters, but so do stories. That evidence matters, but so does altruism.”
As they begin the next steps of their journey, she reminded them, “Know that you do not walk alone. You walk forward as graduates. You walk forward as colleagues. And beginning today, you walk forward as fellow Geisel alumni.”
In bringing the investiture to a close, Geisel School of Medicine Interim Dean Steven Leach acknowledged the genuine challenges facing healthcare—funding uncertainty, strained public health infrastructure, and vulnerable populations facing compounding difficulties, but framed them as reasons why this graduating class is needed “more than ever.”
Leach emphasized that health sciences graduates work at a population scale and their data analysis, policy work, and implementation strategies can reach thousands or millions of people. “That is impact. It is an extraordinary responsibility,” he said. “And it is also an extraordinary privilege.”
An avid fly fisherman, Leach noted that it had taught him an important lesson, “that the most important work requires patience. You can read the water perfectly, choose the right fly, make the right cast, and still come home empty handed. And then you go back. Because you know the river, and you trust the work.”
He continued that it also taught him something about direction. “When you fly fish, you wade upstream. You move against the current, toward the source, because that is where the answers (and usually the best fish) are. That is exactly what you have trained you all to do. While others treat the symptoms downstream, you have learned to look upstream, at what is happening at the source, and how to change it.”
Affirming the class's transformation from extraordinary individuals into trained leaders in public health, epidemiology, health data science, implementation science, and health administration, Leach expressed pride and excitement for what they will accomplish.
Highlights from awards and honors previously recognized:
Health Sciences Research Award: Tanya Budhiraja
Health Sciences Scholar Award: Estefano Royes
Henry Masters Award: Joseph Anthony Martinez and Rebecca Monaco
Karen Ashley Health Sciences Leadership Award: Praburaman Mohan and Kennedy Alyce Price
John E. Wennberg Award: Ava Schroeder
John W. Strohbehn Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research: Kathryn Beauchemin
For additional awards information, please view the investiture and awards programs:
2026 Health Sciences Education Investiture Ceremony Program
2026 Master of Public Health and Master of Science in Healthcare Research Awards Ceremony Program
2026 Health Sciences Student and Faculty Awards Ceremony
If you missed the 2026 Health Sciences Education Investiture Ceremony, watch the video here: