Presented to a Williams graduate in recognition of a most distinguished career, this award is named for James C. Kellogg ’37, who made his mark in financial circles and became chairman of the New York Stock Exchange in 1956. This year’s recipient is honored for outstanding leadership in public health. A Williams French major who swam, played baseball, broadcast on WCFM, and joined the debate team and Glee Club, our Eph earned four graduate degrees in rapid succession: an M.A. in the history of science, an M.D., and a master’s in public health (all from Harvard), and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He worked in the U.S. Public Health Service, was named medical director of the Job Corps, joined the faculty of U.C.L.A. School of Public Health, started a company to help employers control health costs, and was vice president of Johnson & Johnson. In 1998 he was named director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which encompasses 85 cities and 10 million citizens. During his 16-year tenure, the department became a respected source of information on diseases and environmental threats, increased health care access for poorer families, modernizing the emergency response infrastructure, oversaw a sharp drop in the number of AIDS cases, mounted the largest immunization effort in U.S. history, reduced food-borne illness, created effective programs to reduce tobacco use, helped stop the increase in childhood obesity, and reduced the threat of lead poisoning in low-income residences. In all his spare time, he has published more than 200 articles, book chapters, and editorials; served as editor of the Annual Review of Public Health; chaired the Partnership for Prevention; and been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. He helped found several national task forces to improve public health. In 2008 he was appointed chair of the Health and Human Services advisory committee on America’s 2020 health objectives. In 2011 President Barack Obama appointed him to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. Now back at U.C.L.A., he is principal investigator of the Health Forecasting project. Awards have been many, including the Porter Prize for his national impact on improving the lives of Americans; the Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for achievements in local public health; the American Public Health Association’s Sedgwick Medal; and the U.C.L.A. Medal, the highest honor bestowed by that university. For his vast contributions to the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans, we are privileged to bestow this year’s Kellogg Award on a member of the Class of 1964: Jonathan Fielding
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