“I was drawn to a number of aspects of Columbia that continues to set it apart in the world of public health. I like the attention given to the practice of public health, and the exposure to those who are doing the practicing in the field.”

"When young people are first exposed to the realities of abject poverty and the public health ills that go along with it, often their first reaction is anger and a passionate desire to be helpful as quickly as possible," says Josh Ruxin, assistant professor of clinical population and family health. "But good intentions alone don't make good public health," notes Dr. Ruxin.

To learn how to develop sound public health policies, Dr. Ruxin, director of the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda, went on a journey that brought him from a high school trip to Ethiopia; to Yale to receive a bachelor's degree in the history of science and medicine; and, after a year-long Fulbright Scholarship to work on women's and children's public health issues in Bolivia, to the Mailman School of Public Health.

"I was drawn to a number of aspects of Columbia that continue to set it apart in the world of public health," Dr. Ruxin explains. "I liked the attention given to the practice of public health, and the exposure to those who are doing the practicing in the field."

Dr. Ruxin amassed unique private sector experience with the Monitor Group and later with On The Frontier, a strategy consulting firm that Dr. Ruxin co-founded. During his five years as a consultant, he led projects in a dozen developing countries and was an advisor to government and private sector leaders on business strategy and economic development. When Rwanda became On The Frontier's leading client, Dr. Ruxin visited Africa and directly observed how the AIDS crisis had seeped into every aspect of life. He decided to work with Jeffrey Sachs, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Earth Institute, at Columbia University. Drs. Ruxin and Sachs additionally collaboratively worked on the Access project, which helps countries to gain access to the financial resources of the Global Fund.

"Columbia University seems to be a place that recognizes the critical need in the 21st century for intersection, and has the resources to synthesize knowledge across disciplines, projects and activities," he explains.

Mailman School students who come to Rwanda to work with Dr. Ruxin have had the opportunity to work on projects that research ways to improve the methodology of ranking household wealth, create more effective ways to deliver services to the impoverished, and one student created a database, system and model to deliver fertilizer loans to more than 6,000 households - to name a few.

Dr. Ruxin adds: "I used to have the feeling that the opportunities to stretch oneself at a young age were too unattainable, so I'm most proud of being able to create the opportunities I wish I had had when I was a student."