The School of Public Health at Georgia State University has established a new lecture series to honor the career of Dr. John R. Lutzker, founding director of The Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development and a Distinguished University Professor.
The John R. Lutzker Lecture is being established with a $50,000 pledge from an anonymous donor.
“I am very honored to have my name on this lecture series,” said Dr. Lutzker, who has devoted his career to the prevention of child abuse and neglect, as well as issues related to intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism.
“Thanks to this generous donation, we will be able to include the public as well as our colleagues in other disciplines, in an important, ongoing dialogue about innovation and prevention science on behalf of children and families. For me, this is yet another reason why I have loved working at Georgia State so much.”
The annual event will enable the school to host an eminent scholar in public health topics such as violence prevention, child maltreatment, trauma-focused interventions, neuroscience and children, intervention science, child welfare policy and advocacy, and intellectual and developmental disabilities/autism. The speaker will be chosen each year by a committee appointed by the dean of the School of Public Health and in consultation with Dr. Lutzker.
Dr. Lutzker, a leading expert in child maltreatment prevention, developed SafeCare®, one of the few programs for preventing child abuse and neglect that is scientifically proven to be effective. SafeCare is being implemented in almost 30 U.S. states and six other countries.
His leadership also led to the creation of the Mark Chaffin Center, a university-level center housed at the School of Public Health. The center promotes the health, safety, well-being and quality of life of children, adults and families with and without disabilities through research, service and advocacy. The center houses the National SafeCare Training and Research Center, Prevent Child Abuse Georgia and the Center for Leadership in Disability, which has the distinction of receiving funding as a University Center of Excellence from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
“We are proud to honor John with this new lecture series,” said Dr. Michael Eriksen, dean of the School of Public Health. “He has led a long and distinguished career as a leader in research and implementation of solutions for child maltreatment and this lecture will be an important new avenue for that work to continue well into the future.”
This is the school’s second major annual lecture series. The Kreuter Katz Lecture in Health Equity was created in 2013 to share knowledge about health disparities in American society and foster solutions. It is named in honor of public health champions Marshall Kreuter and Martha Katz and sponsored by a grant from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation.