OU Public Health Fellowship Celebrates 10 Years with AI-Focused Lecture
Published: Thursday, April 2, 2026
OKLAHOMA CITY – The Hudson Fellows in Public Health Program – a select group of doctoral students at the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health – will observe its 10th anniversary on April 9 with the annual Hudson Fellows Symposium. The event will feature a noontime lecture by health innovation leader Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., MBA.
The Hudson Fellows in Public Health Program was established through the generosity of Dr. Leslie and Cliff Hudson, who had a vision for supporting students as they conduct research for their doctoral degrees. In 2016, the symposium was launched and the first fellowships were awarded. Today, the original $5 million endowment has grown to $6.7 million and has awarded $1.8 million in stipends to doctoral students.
“Student debt is an enormous issue in higher education,” said Leslie Hudson, Ph.D., who earned a doctorate in epidemiology at the college and is a former faculty member. “The competitive fellows program lessens the financial burden for the top Ph.D. students in the Hudson College of Public Health, allowing them to focus on the completion of their doctoral work.”
“The Hudson Fellows in Public Health program is a testament to the power of endowment,” Cliff Hudson said. “Managed by the OU Foundation, the fund continues to grow while providing funds for student fellowships and the annual symposium.”
The endowment supports eight fellows each year; 29 have been named since the program began. They have spent an average of 28.6 months in the fellowship and represent public health disciplines such as biostatistics and epidemiology, health promotion sciences, and occupational and environmental health. Their dissertations feature a wide variety of topics, including the epidemiology of COVID-19 and influenza co-infection, the effects of environmental quality on academic achievement in school-age students, and human papillomavirus vaccination.
“Being named a Hudson Fellow enables them to focus on their own research rather than that of their mentor, who ordinarily would pay them from their grant funding. In many cases, fellows finish their degrees faster than the typical Ph.D. student,” said Hudson College of Public Health Dean Dale Bratzler, D.O., MPH. “Graduates are now employed in a variety of areas, including academia, research institutions, private foundations, governmental public health, the pharmaceutical industry and other industries.”
Gary Raskob, Ph.D., senior vice president and provost of the OU Health Campus, said the Hudson Fellows in Public Health Program produces highly skilled graduates who are poised to make a difference in their fields.
“Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Leslie and Cliff Hudson, this program is helping prepare the next generation of public health leaders for Oklahoma and the nation,” Raskob said. “These students are addressing issues that matter deeply to the health of our communities.”
The speaker for the symposium, Dr. Vivian S. Lee, will meet with the Hudson Fellows before speaking at noon in the college’s Edward N. Brandt Jr. Auditorium. Her lecture is titled “Advancing Healthspan with AI: Opportunities for How We Work, Care, Discover, and Share.” Following her lecture, she will sign copies of her book “The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies That Work for Everyone.” Lee, the daughter of former Hudson College of Public Health Dean and Professor Elisa Lee, Ph.D., is an executive fellow at Harvard Business School and a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
“We are delighted to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Hudson Fellows in Public Health program and to welcome Dr. Vivian Lee as our symposium speaker,” Leslie Hudson said. “Her innovative approach to improving the U.S. health care system could not be more timely.”
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About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university with campuses in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. In Oklahoma City, the OU Health Campus is one of the nation’s few academic health centers with seven health profession colleges located on the same campus. The OU Health Campus serves approximately 4,000 students in more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs spanning Oklahoma City and Tulsa and is the leading research institution in Oklahoma. For more information about the OU Health Campus, visit www.ouhsc.edu.