ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) is proud to announce that Dr. Sandro Galea will be the 2026 Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award Plenary keynote speaker during the 2026 Annual Conference in Portland, OR, April 22-24.

“I am honored and humbled,” said Galea, who is the Margaret C. Ryan Dean in the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. “Health education is foundational to the work of improving the conditions that shape how people live —and to be recognized at the SOPHE conference by the Fries Foundation and the CDC Foundation for contributing to that effort is deeply meaningful.”

Galea and his keynote, sponsored by the CDC Foundation and the James F. and Sarah T. Fries Foundation on Thursday April 23, will address the questions: Why do we aspire to create health?   What are the priorities we should be thinking about when we think about health?

“Generating a conversation that helps populations understand health has never mattered more,” Galea said. “At a time when trust in science and public institutions is under strain, the professionals who help people make sense of health — in their own lives and in their communities — are doing some of the most consequential work in public health today.”

Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is also the Eugene S and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, and Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Boston University, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed literature and is a regular contributor to a range of public media, about the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma. He has been listed as one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He is past chair of the Boston Board of Health, Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science.

The CDC Foundation is honored to partner with the James F. and Sarah T. Fries Foundation, which established and funds the award. As of 2016, the CDC Foundation manages and administers the Fries Foundation’s public health award programs, which include the James and Sarah Fries Prize for Improving Health and the Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award. 

“My work has always been animated by a conviction that health is shaped far more by the world around us than by the health care we receive,” Galea said. “That means education — helping communities and policymakers understand the forces that create health — is not peripheral to public health. It is central to it.”

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About SOPHE

The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) is a nonprofit association that supports leaders in public health, health education and promotion to advance healthy and equitable communities across the globe. SOPHE members work in health care settings, communities, organizations, schools, universities, worksites, and in local, state and federal government agencies. For more information visit www.sophe.org.