Dear Members of the TC Community:

I am delighted to announce the appointment of John Allegrante, Professor of Health Education, as the inaugural Charles Irwin Lambert Endowed Professor of Health Behavior and Education.

Professor Allegrante joined Teachers College in 1979 and is an applied behavioral scientist whose research focuses on improving the behavioral self-management of chronic diseases. The author of two books and dozens of book chapters and articles, Professor Allegrante is a brilliant scholar and teacher who has launched the careers of countless TC students and contributed to significant advances in the management of arthritis and cardiopulmonary diseases, including asthma, heart disease and hypertension. Among numerous international engagements, he has collaborated with Icelandic colleagues as a Fulbright Specialist in Public/Global Health and U.S. scholar to develop an ongoing program of multidisciplinary research that is investigating risks and protective factors, including the impact of COVID-19, in a life-course study of child and adolescent development.

His advancements in the field earned him the CDC Foundation’s Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award in 2017, which cited his “extraordinary and indelible contributions to the fields of behavioral sciences and health education as a researcher, academician, ambassador, mentor and public servant.”

Professor Allegrante is a Past President and Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE). He holds joint appointments in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and is an affiliate of the Columbia Center for Injury Science and Prevention. During his time at TC, he has served as Chair of the Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Deputy Provost of the College, and Associate Vice President for International Affairs.

The Lambert Endowed Professorship is named after the eminent American psychiatrist Charles Irwin Lambert, who was a professor of psychiatric education at Teachers College from 1926 to 1937. The chair was established in 1968 by gifts of family members, friends and associates of Professor Lambert to honor an individual of outstanding distinction in scholarship and teaching.

Please join me in congratulating Professor Allegrante for this well-deserved appointment. You can read more about his contributions and about the legacy of Professor Charles Irwin Lambert here.

Warmly,

Stephanie J. Rowley
Provost, Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs