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Tributes to Lorraine - Karin Yeatts

Lorraine Alexander has been a stalwart member of the Epi Department for over 30 years She has contributed to the education of *thousands* of students and public health professionals. She was way ahead of her time with respect to online course development and learning.

I first met Lorraine when I was a first-year doctoral student and serving as a Teaching Assistant; Lorraine worked closely with Carl Shy on Epid 160 (now Epid 600), a course that serves hundreds of students from across the school. Lorraine helped Carl restructure the course to focus on collaborative and active learning. She was always working on improving the course, finding better ways to structure assessments, and supporting the teaching team. You were down to earth, approachable, and thoughtful. Your family's guinea pigs were always a fun topic our TA meetings!

When Carl retired, Lorraine worked closely Vic Schoenbach when he took over Epid 600, and when I starting teaching Epid 600, Lorraine worked closely with me, for which I am very grateful.

Lorraine collaborated with the NC Institute of Public Health for many years. For one of her major projects, Lorraine led the development of the Field Epi Certificate Program, and became the Director.

The Field Epi Certificate was designed for public health professionals in the field at local and regional health departments. Lorraine led the development of four completely asynchronous courses- twenty years before COVID and the global pivot to online learning.

Lorraine led the development of the ERIC and FOCUS notebooks, which were short 2–3-page summaries of basic epidemiologic concepts that could be provided for FREE to students. These materials continue to be a wonderful resource for the students.

Lorraine was awarded a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) development grant from the University. She asked me to work with her on course development and we built The MOOC Epidemiology; The Basic Science of Public Health. This course has over 216,000 people registered, and 28,000 people who completed the course.

Most recently Lorraine served as Practicum Faculty Mentor for the Applied Epidemiology Students. She did an excellent job supporting the AE students in their practicum searches and working with the Schools MPH Practicum team.

I also wanted to give a quick shout out to Lorraine's children Katie and Danny, who both grew up with the Epid department; Katie even took Epid 600 when she was an undergraduate here at UNC! Lorraine, it has been a privilege to know and work with you Lorraine. You will be missed! Thank you!!