Allan Rosenfield, Dean Emeritus of Mailman School, Dies of ALS
By Alix Pianin
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 13, 2008

Allan Rosenfield, dean emeritus of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and a pioneer in maternal health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS research, passed away Sunday morning from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Rosenfield served as the dean of the Mailman School for 22 years before stepping down earlier this year. During his tenure, the school expanded its faculty and student body while also garnering more grant and research money than ever before. Mailman grew to be the second largest school at Columbia, and the third largest school of public health in the country.

After attending Harvard, Rosenfield received his medical degree from Columbia, where he returned in 1975 to teach. He served as chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology for two years before becoming dean in 1986.

As a leader in his fields, Rosenfield pioneered research on maternal mortality rates in developing nations, as well as on women’s reproductive rights and the spread of HIV/AIDS in mothers and children. He brought his research and treatment to sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, where he worked with organizations providing care to pregnant women and founded the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program.

Rosenfield also expanded Mailman’s work in the surrounding Washington Heights community, where the school now runs several clinics.

Rosenfield’s work, Mailman School vice dean Andrew Davidson said, was instrumental in shaping Columbia as a global university, as it brought University research into an international context.

“He did much to shape Columbia as a university with a global focus,” Davidson said. “A very large portion of the University’s global health research is focused in the School of Public Health because of Allan Rosenfield.”

Both Davidson and current dean Linda Fried described Rosenfield as a researcher who became a resounding voice for human rights advocacy both locally and internationally.
“He was a powerful advocate and often the only voice for reproductive rights for women in this country and around the world,” Fried said. “He was a really phenomenal man who was a visionary and completely dedicated.”

“This is no ordinary scientist or administrator,” Davidson said. “We have a leader who was not afraid to be an advocate. We have a leader who was not afraid to move into a global context. We have a leader who was not afraid to take on issues that society often differed strongly about.”