The 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award for the Department of Health Promotion Sciences goes to Pam Remmel, MPH.
Pam earned her MPH is 1993 from the Department and is a loyal alumna, donor and friend to the Hudson College of Public Health. After graduation, Pam immediately starting serving the state in leadership roles. Pam served as the Executive Director for the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network in Oklahoma from 1995-2001, where she assisted with the transition from a hospice model to a life-affirming model of volunteer service. Pam went on to be the Executive Director of Heartline from 2001- 2007. Pam was a teen pregnancy and HIV prevention coordinator for the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy and a certified neuro-diagnostic technologist working in both hospital and clinic settings. Pam ended her distinguished career as the Executive Director for the Health Alliance for the Uninsured, where she worked for more than 12 years until her retirement in 2019. As Executive Director for the Health Alliance for the Uninsured, she and the HAU team worked with thirteen free or charitable partner clinics and two community health centers to develop collaborative solutions to the unmet health needs of their low-income, uninsured patients. HAU received the Oklahoma Nonprofit Excellence Award in the Health Services category in April 2016 and Pam received the Don J. Blair Friend of Medicine Award presented by Oklahoma State Medical Association in April 2016. Pam recently joined the Board of the Public Health Institute of Oklahoma. In her free time, Pam enjoys gardening, cooking, walking her dogs, and reading to stay current. She is a relocation volunteer for the Oklahoma Humane Society, having made two trips to Chicago to transfer a total of 62 dogs and puppies for adoption. Pam looks forward to resuming travel her plans.
Here is an excerpt from one of her nomination letters:
“Pam has been a quiet, but strong public health leader in Oklahoma for many years. She has brought passion and commitment to numerous public health initiatives such as child advocacy and teen pregnancy prevention, HIV and AIDS education and assistance, and crisis interventions. Most recently, her work with the uninsured has helped thousands of Oklahomans find health care when they had no place else to turn. Her public health efforts and advocacy has made a difference, and is clearly most deserving of the Hudson College of Public Health Distinguished Alumnus Award.”
– Neil Hann, 2019 DAA Winner