Whitney P. Witt Installed As Inaugural Dean of the College of Health

Family, Lehigh colleagues and members of Lehigh’s Board of Trustees gathered at the President’s House on Thursday evening as Whitney P. Witt was installed as the inaugural dean of Lehigh’s new College of Health.

Provost Pat Farrell introduced Witt to attendees and presented her with the Lehigh medallion.

“The college that [Witt] will help create here will be innovative and competitive. It will launch the next generation of leaders in health care and will have the potential to change millions of lives for the better,” said Farrell. “This is a time of great opportunity, and we’re so excited about what Lehigh will be able to accomplish under Whitney’s leadership.”

Prior to her arrival at Lehigh earlier this year, Witt served as director of the Center for Maternal and Child Health Research at IBM Watson Health in North Carolina, the division of IBM that leverages advanced technology to help improve health outcomes and systems for hospitals and patients, as well as providers, insurers and researchers. A widely respected leader in public health, Witt brings to Lehigh 25 years of experience in both academia and industry. Previously, she held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the Northwestern University School of Medicine. She earned both her Masters of Public Health and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and later completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard University School of Medicine. She has a B.A. from Hampshire College.

As inaugural dean, Witt will oversee the continued development of the College of Health, which will launch in Fall 2020.

The College of Health will incorporate cutting-edge and innovative coursework, distance learning and experiential learning, said Witt, with educational programs in epidemiology, biostatistics, social and behavioral health, and health innovation and technology—all of which will build on Lehigh’s existing strengths in bioengineering, health systems, health economics and early childhood health. The College also will leverage Lehigh’s “robust experiential and international academic culture as it prepares students for the global workplace,” she said.

“The spirit of innovation and technology will be woven into all aspects of the educational and research programs,” Witt explained. “We will make the results of our work accessible to the populations we study to facilitate deeper understanding and clear decisionmaking through creative data visualization. We also seek to draw upon the humanities to better tell the stories of our communities and the health experiences of our population through narrative and visual arts. Our students will be equipped with the knowledge, skills and expertise that they will need for leadership in health related organizations, including nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, the private sector and academia. In the coming year, we will work together and build on the foundation to hire faculty, develop curriculum and establish meaningful partnerships, all with the goal of Lehigh will becoming a leader in education, research and service in the field of population health.”

To read more about Lehigh’s innovative new College of Health, click here.