Dr. Allan Rosenfield
Dean of the School of Public Health at Columbia University

Allan Rosenfield was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard College and an M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Internship and one year of general surgical residency was completed at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, followed by two years of service in the U.S. Air Force. He then entered the obstetrics and gynecology residency program at Harvard's Boston Lying In/Free Hospital for Women program in Boston (now the Brigham and Women's Hospital).

Following completion of training in 1966, Dr. Rosenfield spent one year as an instructor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital in Nigeria. He then joined the Population Council, serving for six years in Thailand as Medical Advisor for Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health to the Ministry of Public Health, and as representative of the Population Council. He returned to New York to direct a major international rural-based maternal and child health and family planning program sponsored by the Population Council.

In 1975, Dr. Rosenfield moved to Columbia University, as Professor of Obstetrics-Gynecology and Public Health and as Director of the Center for Population and Family Health, a position he held until 1988. Since 1986 he has been Dean of the School of Public Health and DeLamar Professor of Public Health. Prior to becoming Dean, he served for two years as acting chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and continues to be a Professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr. Rosenfield is a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a fellow of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and an elected member of the Institute of Medicine. He is a member of many scientific and professional organizations and serves on the Boards and/or Committees of a broad array of population, health and science organizations, including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (The World Bank), the United States Agency for International Development, several United Nations organizations, the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine, the National Council on International Health, the New York State and City Departments of Health, and several local New York City and State non-profit organizations. He has served as Chair of the Board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is a past president of the New York Obstetrical Society and is currently Chair of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and Chair of the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association.

He has written extensively in the field of population, family planning, maternal and child health, obstetrics and gynecology and international health, with over 100 publications to date.