The Work That Matters

I was raised in a family committed to health and community. But I didn’t understand what a career in public health looked like. After college, I worked in health services for seniors, which was when I figured out that I should get an advanced degree in public health.

I studied Health Services Administration at YSPH, and was trained in sociology, economics, and political science. Today, YSPH has a much more quantitatively based scientific approach to education and research. However, that approach must be connected to an infrastructure that understands community, context, implementation, and results. That is why public health is so fascinating and what keeps me engaged.

First and foremost, economic security. No one can do their best work while under financial pressure. I want to reduce that burden so students can flourish, unhindered. For researchers, doing the work moves knowledge forward. Making funds available helps ease this process.

The COVID pandemic laid bare weaknesses in public health. There’s a need for more transparency and communication around public health decisions. And key organizations—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH)—are being dismantled. However, YSPH is flourishing as Yale’s newest independently operated school. I'm motivated to support YSPH knowing my contributions are going directly to the school and are under its sole discretion.

I believe in giving back. I use what I learned at Yale every day, and I want the next generation to have the same opportunity. I also want Yale to attract and retain the strongest students and faculty possible. I struggled financially at Yale and nearly withdrew because I could not afford to pay my tuition. My commitment, and the commitment of other graduates, should be to guarantee success for future generations—to help them as we were helped.

The Class of 2026 is already making an impact. Join them in giving back to the school that's shaping the future of public health.

Issues related to public health have been a constant in our lives for many years. Molly has been involved with public health for over a decade as an activist and volunteer around gun violence prevention. I was exposed to public health by my father, James Matthew Malloy, MPH ’67, a former hospital executive and professor of public health who was honored to receive YSPH’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 2004.

At the end of his career, my father was very interested in trying to extend health care to underserved communities in the rural South, including Jackson, Mississippi. He always credited his training at YSPH for helping him tackle difficult problems effectively.

YSPH’s mission is to educate and equip the best public health scientists. Our gift to an endowed scholarship in my father’s name will support a student’s training, so they learn best practices in equitable, scalable, health care delivery.

Gun violence in the United States is a public health crisis and the leading cause of death for children and teens. It is an issue we care deeply about, and we are hoping that our gift to support Dean Megan Ranney’s Firearm Injury Prevention initiative will enable researchers at YSPH to provide more empirical evidence on the costs and benefits of various commonsense gun violence prevention measures.

We feel that YSPH, under Dean Ranney’s leadership, is poised to make a huge impact on society in the coming years. Yale University is one of the rare institutions in the U.S. where your gift can have an exponential impact due to the university's incredible reach and resources.

I was taught to focus on the individual patient, but it became impossible to ignore how much of what I was seeing was shaped by forces beyond the exam room: access, environment, education, policy. Public health allows us to create conditions for health in the first place.

Science must translate into real-world impact. The school’s mission to educate and equip public health scientists feels especially meaningful. We need people who are not only technically excellent, but who can think across disciplines, communicate clearly, and stay grounded in the communities they serve. YSPH is cultivating that leadership; it gives me hope.

I think about possibility. The questions we ask today will shape our response to future challenges, whether climate, aging, emerging diseases, or health systems. My hope is that this support provides the freedom — and the responsibility — to think boldly and stay connected to the work’s human impact.

The pandemic brought a deeper appreciation of the field — and a clearer view of its vulnerabilities. At the same time, advances in data, technology, and interdisciplinary research are opening doors that didn’t exist a decade ago. The question is, will we continue investing in the people and institutions that do that work? Supporting an independent school of public health like YSPH is a way of affirming the work matters.

I would simply say that it’s one way to help extend the reach of this work. But more broadly, public health is something we all participate in, whether we realize it or not, and there’s a role for everyone in strengthening it.