Donna L. Richter has been named interim dean of USC’s Arnold School of Public Health. She also is the school’s associate dean of the Office of Public Health Practice and a professor in the schools’ Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior.

In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Richter is a nationally recognized researcher and author. She is the principal investigator of the CDC/ASPH Institute for HIV Prevention Leadership, a CDC-funded program that has been enhancing the capacity of community-based organizations to provide effective HIV prevention to at-risk communities since 1997, as well as being the principal investigator on many other research and training grants in the areas of infectious disease, health disparities, and women’s health.

She currently is the principal investigator of the Executive Leadership Institute for Bioterrorism Preparedness, another CDC-funded research initiative, and is the principal investigator of a statewide initiative funded by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to assess the bioterrorism-related needs of the public health workforce in the state.

Richter also serves as co-principal investigator of the Arnold School of Public Health’s Academic Center for Public Health Preparedness, an initiative funded by CDC that establishes USC as a national leader in the preparation of public health workforce to combat bioterrorism and other public health emergencies.

Richter has conducted numerous assessments of capacity-building needs of health professionals and has designed, delivered, and evaluated many educational programs to meet those identified needs. She has served as principal investigator on various infectious disease-related grants focusing on HIV prevention as well as health-related needs and decisions of persons living with HIV. To increase the likelihood of proper diagnosis, treatment, and containment of tuberculosis, Richter also has secured research funding to use the concepts of social marketing to develop and pilot test an academic detailing intervention for physicians and other heath care providers.

Richter is the past president of the International Society for AIDS Education and served for many years as associate editor of AIDS Education and Prevention, a quarterly peer-reviewed journal. She is past president of the MU Chapter of Delta Omega, the public health professional honor society, and has chaired the Council on Continuing Education of the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH).

Richter is a fellow of the American Academy for Health Behavior and was elected to membership in Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. In 1994, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and lived in Sierra Leone, West Africa, while conducting a study of HIV- related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among the adult population in Freetown and working with the National AIDS Programme and local community- based organizations on HIV prevention initiatives.

Richter has won the Arnold School of Public Health's James A. Keith Excellence in Teaching Award and is the school’s most recent winner of the Faculty Research Award. She has authored more than 50 professional articles and publications, many of them reporting the results of her HIV- related research.

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