Dean of Rutgers School of Graduate Studies Receives the 2024 Friend of Thai Science Award

Mark Robson, dean of the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies and a faculty at the Rutgers School of Public Health, has received the 2024 Friend of Thai Science Award from the Office of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation of the Royal Thai Embassy. 

“The 2024 Friend of Thai Science Award is a wonderful acknowledgment of the work I have been able to do with the support of Rutgers for over 30 years in Thailand,” said Robson, who is also a distinguished professor.

The embassy awards this prestigious recognition to those who have made significant contributions to Thai higher education, science, and innovation.

“Your long-term commitment to Thai science, particularly your work with the ITREOH at Chulalongkorn College of Public Health Science and the GEOHealth Hub project, have been invaluable in training new public health graduates in Thailand,” said Thitidej Tularak, Minister-Counsel of Higher Education, Science, Research.

Robson received the award on December 6, 2024, in Washington D.C.

“I am so grateful to Rutgers University for supporting this work and providing a platform for me to apply for competitive funding through NIH and other sources. The Thai word Ajarn (อาจารย์) means "teacher" or "professor" and is used as a term of respect. I have now been Ajarn Mark for 30+ years.  It has been a privilege to teach hundreds of students in the Environmental Risk class, which will be held for the 25th year in January, to the dozens of MPH and PhD students under the NIH Fulbright. I have had the privilege of mentoring such a wonderful cohort of young women and men. After all these years, I now find myself serving as an advisor to the students of my original graduate students, or as the Thai faculty like to tease, Ajarn Mark is now ‘Grandfather Professor’,” added Robson, who received his Master of Public Health degree from the Rutgers School of Public Health in 1995.