The Scarletter

The Office of Student Experiences, Public Health Practice, & Alumni Affairs (SEAA) provides opportunities for students and alumni to learn, connect, and advance their public health skills. By overseeing academic advising, career services, student support services, events, and more, the office offers a variety of resources and supports to maximize the experience and well-being of students while at the school and after they graduate.

SEAA is excited to be hosting 100+ student initiatives this academic year, starting with 25+ September Welcome Week events to students prepare for success, learn about student support and well-being services, acclimate to the SPH landscape, and connect with peers, faculty, and staff as we begin the new semester!

Students, faculty, and staff can learn more about these events through the SPH Student Connect and SPH Career & Practice Connect Canvas Calendars.

This year will mark SEAA's fifth year of implementing Wellness Phirst, an innovative, one-of-a-kind wellness rewards and leadership development program for School of Public Health students. At its core, Wellness PHirst is a mission to embed wellness practices into the fabric of the Rutgers School of Public Health student experience. The Wellness PHirst program is designed and implemented by SEAA staff Claire Brown, Samantha Gonnelli, and Victoria Rivera.

Through the Wellness PHirst rewards program, each month throughout the academic year, Rutgers School of Public Health students have the opportunity to participate in activities and events centered around themes of wellness and to earn rewards through the Wellness Winners program. Students can view program details and get started earning Wellness Wins by visiting the SPH Wellness PHirst Connect Canvas page.

To help Wellness PHirst thrive, Wellness PHirst Ambassadors work directly with SEAA to facilitate student support and mentorship services, help incoming students navigate the wellness resources available within the School and across campus, and co-lead and co-create engaging student programming. Features of this year's cohort of Wellness PHirst Ambassadors are coming soon!

Mitchel A. Rosen, professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice and director of the Center for Public Health Workforce Development at the Rutgers School of Public Health, has been named a recipient of the Alice Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Public Health Association’s Occupational Health and Safety Section.

The award recognizes people who have spent their careers improving the health and safety of workers. Named for Alice Hamilton, widely considered the founder of occupational health in the United States, the award honors a lifetime of service, science, and advocacy on behalf of working people.

Since 1988, he has managed training for more than 1 million workers in occupational safety and health, environmental health, and public health education. At Rutgers, he has helped build programs that prepare workers, first responders, public health professionals, and others to address the hazards they face on the job—and to meet new public health challenges as they emerge.

“I have focused on bringing students to workplaces so that they see and understand how workers are impacted by their work,” said Rosen. “Alice Hamilton conducted site visits over 100 years ago to understand exposures, and I find it a big part of my work now. So, to receive the Alice Hamilton Award from the Occupational Health and Safety Section of APHA is an incredible honor.”

Hazardous materials, emergency preparedness, workplace safety, environmental health, disaster response, and public health workforce development. 

The Center for Public Health Workforce Development, which he leads, also provides training in areas ranging from OSHA standards and hazardous waste to heat illness prevention, respiratory protection, asbestos and lead safety, mental health and resiliency, and other workplace health issues.

But much of Rosen’s career has focused on something fairly straightforward: making sure training actually helps people at work.

The APHA noted Rosen’s longstanding commitment to worker health and safety through service, partnership, and mentorship, as well as the reach of the programs he has built and led over the course of his career.

Rosen will receive the Alice Hamilton Award alongside Katherine Kirkland, DrPH, longtime executive director of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics. Both will be honored during APHA’s 154th Annual Meeting & Expo, taking place November 1–4, 2026, in San Antonio, Texas.

Eight years after participating in PHocus, Lindsey Luper is a master of public health student at the Rutgers School of Public Health, concentrating in social and behavioral health sciences.

In 2018, Lindsey Luper was a high school student interested in science and health, but she didn’t know much about public health.

Then one of her teachers told her about PHocus. Short for Public Health: Outbreaks, Communities, and Urban Studies, PHocus is a summer experience program for high school students offered through the Rutgers School of Public Health.

Luper signed up. Over the course of the program, she met Rutgers faculty and health professionals, visited various community organizations, learned about topics ranging from epidemiology to health communication, and started to see just how many different careers could fall under the public health umbrella.

She still remembers an activity from the last day of the program. Students used chalk to write what they had learned outside the school.

Luper’s group wrote four words: “Public health is everywhere.”

Eight years later, Luper is a master of public health student at the Rutgers School of Public Health, concentrating in social and behavioral health sciences. Her interests have become more specific – program development and evaluation, health communication, behavior change – but that early lesson about the reach of public health took root.

Over the summer, Luper was back at PHocus, this time as a graduate student, helping high school students explore some of the same questions she had been asking in 2018.

Luper shared how her understanding of public health has changed since high school, what shaped her interests along the way, and what she hopes today’s PHocus students gain from their experience.