Public health alumni receive UIC’s highest honors
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The UIC Alumni Association (UIC AA) has chosen two UIC School of Public Health alumni as award recipients for 2022. Dr. David A. Ansell, MPH ’91, and Captain Todd Stankewicz, MBA ’01, MPH ’01 are among a group of alumni from across UIC that are receiving some the highest honors at the university.
Dr. Ansell, one of the UIC AA’s Alumni Achievement Award honorees this year, currently serves as senior vice president for community health equity and associate provost for community affairs at Rush University Medical Center. Throughout his life and career, Ansell has focused on helping to reduce inequalities in health care through his work, as an author, and as a volunteer. During his tenure at Rush, Ansell has helped establish the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce, West Side United, and the Center for Community Health Equity. He has served as chairperson for the Quality and Patient Safety Committee on the Cook County Health System’s board of directors since 2008 and also provides volunteer services to the free Community Health Clinic in Chicago. Ansell travels to the Dominican Republic annually to provide medical relief and served in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Ansell’s first book, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital, was named one of Wall Street Journals “Top Five Books on Healthcare” in 2011 and he later published a second book titled The Death Gap. Ansell has served as a mentor for numerous SPH graduates over the years and participated as a panelist during the 2018 SPH Learning Series: Racism as a Public Health Issue.
Captain Todd Stankewicz, MBA ’01, MPH ’01, this year’s UIC AA Humanitarian Award honoree, is a Commissioned Officer with the U.S. Public Health Service and serves as regional emergency coordinator for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Secretary. Through his work, Stankewicz provides support and federal emergency response across the United States. Stankewicz deployed to assist with relief efforts to areas including Flint, Michigan to assist with the water crisis and to Puerto Rico, Texas and New Orleans to assist with hurricane relief efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stankewicz coordinated efforts to evacuate Americans from Wuhan China and passengers on the Grand Princess Cruise ship while also working to secure protective equipment and ventilators for the states. He remains an active member of the SPH community and served as president of the UIC School of Public Health Alumni Board from 2016-2018.
Dr. Ansell and Todd are two of the many SPH alumni that we have had the pleasure of honoring for their hard work and dedication to the public health field in recent years. View a full list of past award recipients.