Marlo Cavnar Vernon ’01
English
When Marlo Cavnar Vernon ’01 entered Franciscan University, she knew she wanted to study health care.
“I loved the idea of helping to heal the person,” she remembers.
Then she took a course in the sociology of public health, where she learned about the rates of low-birthweight babies and discovered her career path: preventive health, especially for mothers and babies.
“I always had a heart for moms and babies, and that became the passion I wanted to focus on.” She went on to earn a master’s in public health in 2003 from the University of South Carolina, with a focus in maternal and child health, and a PhD in applied health science in 2018 from Augusta University. Marlo has spent nearly two decades researching and teaching preventive health, including obesity prevention, maternal and child health, suicide prevention, substance abuse awareness, cancer prevention, and more.
