ATLANTA—Three nationally recognized scholars will share their insights with the Georgia State University School of Public Health community as part of the Spring 2026 Grand Rounds Lecture Series.
Founded in 2022, the Grand Rounds Lecture Series brings public health thought leaders to campus for dialogues with students, faculty, staff and community members. All lectures are free and open to the public and are held at noon in the Student Center Speaker’s Center Auditorium. The Spring 2026 speakers and the dates of their lectures are:
- Michael Bergin, Steinberg Family Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University and a faculty member in the university’s Global Health Institute, January 22;
- Richard Weinmeyer, Assistant Professor of Law and a faculty member of the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy at Loyola University Chicago, February 25; and
- Michelle Mello, Professor of Law and Health Policy at Stanford University, April 15
“Our Spring 2026 Grand Round speakers highlight how public health draws upon different perspectives and approaches to improve the health and well-being of populations,” said Associate Professor Jalayne Arias, who leads the Grand Rounds Lecture committee. “We are excited to welcome them to campus for this School of Public Health tradition.”
Bergin conducts research that focuses on the influence of air pollution on both climate and human health. He is particularly interested in how particulate matter impacts climate by modifying the radiation balance of the atmosphere. More recently, he has been studying the influence of particulate matter on human health, with emphasis on determining the relative contributions of sources to acute health impacts. He is also involved in developing and deploying the next generation of air quality sensors to inform citizens on the quality of the air they breathe so they can make informed decisions to improve their air.
Weinmeyer conducts research in the fields of public health law, health law, bioethics, and research methods. His work seeks to understand how law and policy can be used to solve fundamental issues in public health, including sanitation, infectious disease prevention and treatment, access to health care, stigma and dignitary harms. Prior to joining Loyola, Weinmeyer was a Jaharis Faculty Fellow in Health Law and Intellectual Property at DePaul University’s College of Law. There, he taught courses on public health law, food and drug law, and bioethics and the law.
Mello is a leading empirical health law scholar whose research is focused on understanding the effects of law and regulation on health care delivery and population health outcomes. She is the author of more than 250 articles on medical liability, public health law, the public health response to COVID-19, pharmaceuticals and vaccines, artificial intelligence, data ethics and privacy, biomedical research ethics and governance, and other topics. In 2013, Mello was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (then called the Institute of Medicine), one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine, in recognition of outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
In addition to Arias, members of the Grand Rounds Committee are:
- April Ballard, Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences and co-lead, Center on Health and Homelessness
- Marcus Cooper, Facilities and Events Specialist
- Sam Fahmy, Director of Communications
- Kimberly Freire, Clinical Associate Professor and MPH Program Director, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences
- Amanda Gilmore, Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences
- Roby Greenwald, Associate Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences
- Harry Heiman, Clinical Professor, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences
- Jordyn Irons, Communications Specialist
- Kevin Maloney, Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences
- Mary Manchester, Research Coordinator, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences
- Anne Marie Schipani-McLaughlin, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences
- Daniel Whitaker, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences, and Associate Dean for Research