A board-certified pediatrician, Dr. William Sappenfield never entered traditional medical practice. While finishing his residency, he decided he wanted to enter academics, instead. Following the advice of his father, a professor and associate dean at a medical school, he applied to an NIH-CDC research training program.
“I fell in love with public health,” said Sappenfield, Community and Family Health professor/department chair and director of the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies. “Even though I liked the idea of taking care of children and families one at a time, I became enamored with the ability to help multiple children and families at the same time by using epidemiology as a tool.”
A widely recognized pioneer in his field, Sappenfield received the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau Director’s Award “for outstanding leadership and mentoring in promoting MCH epidemiologists nationwide” at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs annual conference in Washington, D.C., in late January.
