Class Notes

“A typical thing for Kathy would be that she’s working on vaccines in Vietnam for a week, gets off the plane after flying around the world and is calling from the Uber asking, ‘How do I get to the kids’ games?’” says her sister, Sue O’Connell ’76.

Neuzil’s priorities beyond medicine and public health were formed as a child, when the family lived on the flanks of the UMD Golf Course. Her father was a Terrapin Club member and infused the household with Maryland sports fervor, and even took a preteen Kathleen to the ACC tournament.

But then, over a tragic two years, Neuzil’s father died of cancer when she was 12, followed by her mother’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage when she was 14. The potentially ruinous effect on her future, however, was averted when the four siblings—the oldest of whom had just reached adulthood—drew together and stayed on in their parents’ house, where they dealt with grief by carrying on almost as if their parents were still alive.

“I honestly didn’t feel that I had time to let it derail me in any way,” Neuzil says. “I had my studies. I was playing sports in high school. I was always working part-time because money was a problem.”

A combination of smarts and financial need resulted in a full scholarship at UMD, her dream school. She majored in zoology and played club softball in the days before the university had an NCAA team.

After graduating summa cum laude, she attended Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, followed by a residency in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University, and then a fellowship in infectious diseases and Master of Public Health degree at the same institution.

Among her major research breakthroughs was a demonstration that childhood pneumonia was often linked to influenza, a finding that surprised health authorities and led to flu vaccinations before age 1.

Her longtime research collaborator and friend, Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a professor of pediatrics and an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt, says Neuzil has rare instincts as a researcher.

“She has a gift of seeing what the real question is—a laser vision to focus on that, and not be diverted by side issues,” Edwards says.

Neuzil’s focus broadened to global vaccine issues when she moved to PATH, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded international public health nonprofit in Seattle where, as director of vaccine access and delivery, she was instrumental in rolling out a number of vaccines around the world, including those for HPV, rotovirus and Japanese encephalitis.

She returned to Maryland in 2015 as a professor of vaccinology at UMSOM. (Her husband is a vascular surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and one of their three children is now in medical school.) In addition to serving here as one of the world’s leading voices on vaccine research and policy, she’s rejoined another important group, too.

“When she came back, the family was together again,” O’Connell says.—cc

FABIAN DONATE MHA ’20 was appointed in January to fill a vacancy in the Nevada State Senate, where he hopes to use his public health education to inform policymaking during the pandemic. He most recently served on President Biden’s Health Policy Committee.

AMANDA NACHMAN ’07, CEO and publisher of College Magazine, wrote “#Qualified: You Are More Impressive Than You Realize.” She appeared on “Good Morning America” to share tips for young job-seekers to boost confidence and connections.

LYDIA HU ’06 joined FOX Business Network as a New York-based correspondent. Since January 2018, Hu had been a general assignment reporter and enterprise storyteller for NY1 in New York.

Former Olympic gold-medalist gymnast

DOMINIQUE DAWES ’02 joined Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush Hager in a high-profile group from sports, business and politics that bought an ownership stake in the Washington Spirit, the National Women’s Soccer League club.

KATHLEEN H. HICKS M.P.M. ’93 was sworn in as U.S. deputy secretary of defense, making her the first woman to hold the No. 2 position in the Pentagon. She most recently served as senior vice president and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

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