News About Our Alumni

Medical Mission to Malawi

In May of 2004 Alicia Liesener was busy completing her master's thesis at the SPH. A month later, she was spending her days on the roads of Malawi in a Land Cruiser filled with medical supplies.

Now three years later, Liesener is back from the African country where she worked as a public health administrator for Central Africa Medical Mission. The organization has a 45-year history in Malawi and Zambia.

A desire to work with underserved populations and an interest in African cultures led the epidemiology graduate to the position. Liesener was in charge of a mobile clinic that served five rural villages surrounding Malawi's capital, Lilongwe. Her staff included an American nurse and eight African medical personnel.

Established in 1970, the clinic offers programs in child health, HIV/AIDS prevention, agriculture, and nutrition. It also provides formula for orphaned infants, and—a program that Liesener started last year—assistance for mothers of twins and triplets.

"Mortality rates for those groups are high," explains Liesener. "We had the freedom to do something about it right away."

Liesener is grateful for the breadth of public health education she received at the SPH.

"I'm glad that as an epidemiology student you're required to take classes in health administration and other areas," she says. "That knowledge was useful when dealing with human resources and management issues."

Liesener is interviewing for her next public health position with an outlook shaped by Africa. "It's amazing how much can be done with very few resources" she says. "In Malawi, I learned to be creative with what we had. I think that's a good perspective to bring to public health."

SPH Alumnus Wrote the Book on Clean Water

It's no exaggeration to say that the health of thousands of people worldwide can be traced back to one book. Written in plain language —and reflected in its title, Water Well Manual—the instructional book was geared to the average person.

What was simple by design became revolutionary in impact. Thanks to the book, for the first time families in developing countries could build their own source of clean drinking water. It became a key to both health and self-sufficiency.

The primary author of the book is Ulric Gibson. Born and raised in Guyana, he came to the University of Minnesota, where he received an M.S. in public health engineering and a Ph.D. in environmental health engineering and water resources.

While Gibson was at the SPH as an assistant professor and doctoral candidate, the school was commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development to write a manual on water wells. SPH faculty member Rexford Singer was instrumental in getting the contract and is the book's second author. Published in 1969, the manual remained a bestseller for years and is still regarded as an important resource in the developing world.

From there, Gibson went on to an illustrious career, which included a post at the American Public Health Association and consulting work with the Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization. His water quality projects took him to places such as Guyana, the Caribbean, Argentina, Columbia, Israel, the Gambia, Senegal, Liberia, Russia, and the Ukraine.

Gibson retired in the late 1990s but his Water Well Manual continues to sell. More than a pioneer in water quality, Gibson was an early leader in global public health.

"International work gave me the opportunity to use my expertise for the betterment of people around the world," he says. "And it gave me a much broader perspective."