The College of Health Sciences and the Department of Public Health are thrilled to announce three new appointments: Comfort Z. Olorunsaiye, Ph.D., MPH has been named Undergraduate Program Director of the Department of Public Health; Suzanne (Suzy) Redington, DrPH, MPH, has been named Master of Public Health Director; and Margaret Longacre, Ph.D., MSHE associate professor of Public Health and chair of Public Health, is the new Associate Dean of the College of Health Sciences. 

Dr. Olorunsaiye
Dr. Olorunsaiye, who joined Arcadia in 2018, has years of teaching, public health practice, and scholarly experience. Dr. Olorunsaiye’s role includes the facilitation of the BSPH and Public Health Minor. 

At Arcadia, Dr. Olorunsaiye teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes in the areas of program planning and evaluation, public health leadership and management, capstone, and global health and developed an elective on global maternal and child health. Her primary scholarly interest is in maternal and child health inequities, specifically focusing on the impact of social, cultural and economic inequalities on maternal and child health outcomes, including sexual and reproductive health. Her expertise in health program evaluation lends itself to her interest in implementation research with the goal of identifying what components of interventions work, how they work, under what conditions they work, and how interventions are adapted in different contexts. She has also contributed over the past two years by coordinating a group of faculty in the College of Health Sciences focused on addressing health disparities and achieving health equity. 

Dr. Redington
Dr. Redington started at Arcadia in 2019, and her new role as MPH Director involves facilitation of the MPH and all dual degree offerings (MPH/MMS, MPH/DPT, MPH/IPCR, and MPH/MAC). Prior to Arcadia, she was employed with the Bucks County Department of Public Health for 11 years, serving as their program director from 2011 to 2019. 

In that role, she coordinated the County’s Public Health Preparedness Program, which involved overseeing and implementing all program activities, staff, and volunteers related to public health preparedness, response, and recovery, and partnerships at the local to federal levels. 

Dr. Redington brings extensive practice experience to her teaching and was instrumental in Arcadia’s COVID response. She teaches Effective Communication Strategies for Public Health Impact and Capstone at the graduate level and Introduction to Public Health and Research and Biostatistical Methods in Public Health at the undergraduate level. She also created an emergency preparedness elective for the department. Over the past two years, Dr. Redington contributed to the Department and College’s interprofessional education experience with physical therapy and physician assistant programs for graduate students.  

The College of Health Sciences and Department of Public Health would also like to thank Heather McClintock, PhD, MSPH, MSW for her years of service to the department and students as the previous Undergraduate Program Director. Dr. McClintock teaches global health and epidemiology at the undergraduate level and capstone for the MPH, and she will continue to serve as the undergraduate Public Health Student Society facilitator this academic year.

Dr. Longacre
Dr. Longacre joined the Department of Public Health as an assistant professor in 2016 and became Department Chair in 2020. Dr. Longacre has maintained a successful agenda of grant writing and scholarship with a primary focus on improving health outcomes among family caregivers.

She has an extensive list of refereed publications, national presentations, successful grant funding, and external connections with the public health community. In the classroom, she predominantly teaches courses including healthcare systems and public health policy, research methods in the health sciences, and MPH Capstone research. 

As Department Chair, Dr. Longacre supported COVID-related transitions and needs, led accreditation reporting and data management, initiated community collaborations, and implemented the department’s strategic plan, including external and internal collaborations to enhance access to public health programming and student-faculty scholarship, while working with a cohesive team of faculty and staff in support of University initiatives and student-centered pedagogy. In her prior role as Assistant Dean of Research, she developed and led the interdisciplinary Growing Research and Networking Together (GRANT) group that provided an opportunity for mentoring and interdepartmental collaboration among faculty members interested in research.  

Dr. Longacre’s experience prepares her well to meet the current responsibilities of the Associate Dean role, which include leading the members of the College in developing a new strategic plan, providing opportunities to enhance pedagogy, promoting interprofessional collaboration and collaboration among faculty, and developing a community presence. She earned a doctorate in Health Policy at the University of the Sciences, a master’s in Health Education at Arcadia University, and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Wake Forest University.