UF College of Public Health and Health Professions names new department chair

Leading public health psychologist Barbara Curbow, Ph.D., has been named chairwoman of the department of rehabilitation counseling at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions.

She succeeds former Chairman Horace Sawyer, Ed.D., who is retiring.

Curbow most recently served as an associate professor in the department of health, behavior and society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is currently dividing her time between the two universities until she begins her full-time appointment at UF on March 1.

One of Curbow’s first challenges in her UF post will be guiding the department through the transition to a new name and the addition of two areas of study. Pending approval from university administration, the department will take the name community and behavioral health sciences to reflect the addition of public health divisions in environmental health and social and behavioral sciences to the existing program in rehabilitation counseling.

“A major goal of mine is to find a way to integrate the interests of the faculty and students so this is a single working group instead of three separate divisions,” Curbow said. “There are many ways in which these disciplines can overlap.”

Other goals include promoting junior faculty research and developing doctoral programs in social and behavioral health and environmental health.

Curbow’s research interests include risk communications, cancer prevention and control, and occupational health psychology, with projects focusing on issues such as adolescent girls and smoking, mammography screening, quality of life issues for patients with cancer, and job-related stress.

Curbow ranks involvement in graduate education high on her list of achievements.

“I am proudest of the fact that I have mentored 25 doctoral students who are now scattered all over the country,” said Curbow, who has also served on 75 doctoral dissertation committees. “I take great personal satisfaction in having a hand in training them in the psychology of public health.”

Curbow received her Ph.D. in social/personality psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her family includes husband Bruce Carlberg, an environmental manager at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, daughter Caitlin, a freshman at Johns Hopkins, and daughter Oksana, a high school junior at Garrison Forest School.