New DGHI director Chris Plowe and his wife, Myaing Nyunt, a DGHI faculty member. Photo by Elizabeth Ross.
Published January 8, 2018
Chris Plowe, who began his tenure as DGHI director on January 1, shared this message with the DGHI community during the first week of the new year:
Dear colleagues,
The new year always arrives with feelings of hope and anticipation. This has never been truer for me than it is this week as I officially start as director of the Duke Global Health Institute.
During the past few months I have begun to meet our talented and dedicated faculty, staff and students. Learning about your work—and the deeply humane values that guide it—has been both humbling and inspiring. DGHI is a community that stands apart not only for the excellence and impact of its teaching and research, but for its character. DGHI is admired around the world for its ability to educate future global health leaders, to form mutually beneficial partnerships and to bring multiple spheres of expertise to bear on some of the world’s most pressing health problems. It is a privilege to join you, and to help you advance this mission and deepen our commitment to innovation, collaboration, equity and inclusivity.
Myaing and I want to thank you all for your warm welcome to Duke and the DGHI family. Many faculty and staff have devoted time and effort over the past few months to help us in our transition, and we are deeply grateful. I want to acknowledge in particular our founding director, Mike Merson, whose outstanding leadership has created a powerful legacy on which to build, and whose wisdom and counsel will continue to be important to me. I also want to extend heartfelt appreciation to Randy Kramer for his wise and skillful leadership during the past six months, and to the entire DGHI management team, whose competence and commitment have been truly impressive.
For those of you that I haven’t yet met, I look forward to doing so soon. I want—and need—to get to know you, and to understand your perspective: What are your goals? What inspires you? How can we help you achieve your goals? What new opportunities do you see on the horizon? These and other questions will be our foundations as we start crafting a new strategic plan to guide DGHI into its second decade. I will share more about the strategic planning process in the coming weeks—but it will be a community-driven conversation, and one that seeks to enhance the impact of the critical work you all do around the world.
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday and are as excited as I am to begin this new journey together.
Chris Plowe
Director, Duke Global Health Institute
Learn more about Chris Plowe.
