AI, Public Health, and Higher Ed with Gina S. Lovasi, PhD, MPH

Gina S. Lovasi, PhD, MPH, Dana and Davis Dornsife Dean at Drexel University of the Dornsife School of Public Health, opens up the episode talking about her moment of impact.

When reflecting back on her career, she is most proud of the times when she worked in partnership with others to answer big questions that none of them could have tackled on their own.

A renowned epidemiologist and the youngest dean of a school of public health in the US, probably the youngest dean at the university level in the US period, Dr. Lovasi tells us how the work of public health affects our daily lives. She shares how epidemiologists focus on “exposures” and “outcomes” and carefully examine causation versus correlation.

In order to create trust with the public, when facing policy decisions with spending ramifications, Dr. Lovasi focused at the neighborhood level and the implications for the reality on the ground. To help us understand her work in practical terms, she shares an example of a research question examining what the impact on a neighborhood food desert would be if a grocery store were added.

While it sounds so simple at face value, we learn that it is actually complex. Another example of evaluating if planting trees will produce the desired benefit of reduced asthma. Again, not what you think at first glance! We go on to learn how she keeps the integrity of the inquiry, joins with partners from other disciplines, and constituents affected in the processes she designs to keep maximum trust in the process.

We discuss AI and higher ed. She makes the point that if you are not paying for AI, why is it free to you? It is because YOU are training the model. We discuss how the responsible use of AI should balance in the water and energy consumption and we as a global society should decide is it worth it for jokes and memes OR should we conserve it for the best use cases where AI can solve intractable problems.

Finally, she shares what it is like to be a dean when you are trained in science, but not necessarily in management, how she balances her professional life with her family life as a spouse, mom, and other important roles, and what gives her hope for the future.

Link: https://drexel.edu/dornsife/ LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-s-lovasi-ab19a064/