Jeffrey Coleman Salloway
Professor of Health Management and Policy
Director, Center for Helth Promotion and Research

Early in his career, Jeff Salloway was asked to teach a course in epidemiology.

“I got turned on to epidemiology in 1964 or so,” the sociologist remembers. “They needed a summer course for medical students and I said ‘Sure, I can teach it. Let me read the book.’ Well, I read the book, and I just loved it. It’s been almost 40 years now and I’m still working to make sense of it all.”

At about the same time Salloway, who had been raised in a non-observant Jewish household, also realized that he had no real commitment to his faith. Again, he did “what any academic does.” He read a book.

Two paths became one. “I pursued both [Judaism and epidemiology] as scientific enterprises,” he says. “Eventually, you get to the point where you ask the same question, ‘what is the nature of reality?’”

Today, this holistic blending of insights is commonplace for Salloway, and much more than a pedagogy. It’s a marriage of passions, a genuine gift, he says, and not of his own making. “In my work there is this wonderful merger of mysticism and science. The insight that somehow everything fits together.”

So, how does a professor of health management and policy impart this gift of mysticism and science to an audience of skeptical undergraduates? By example, of course.

A child once nicknamed Salloway “Wizard.” It’s a persona he’s grown into over the years, and it goes well beyond the twinkle in his eye and the unruly white beard. Local schoolchildren may only recognize him as Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter’s beloved mentor. Undergrads who’ve taken Epidemiology and Community Medicine no doubt remember him as Moses analyzing the epidemiology of the 10 plagues of Egypt. And this example, a lecture that’s fallen on the Passover seder, best charts the convergence of Salloway’s lifelong pursuits of science and spirituality.

As the Bible relates, after the Pharaoh ignores Moses’ plea to “let my people go,” God unleashes the plagues upon Egypt. Through the eyes of an epidemiologist, the plagues might be explained in this way: red algae created the illusion that the Nile had turned to blood; frogs overran the land fleeing contaminated river water; without frogs as natural predators, an insect infestation resulted.

“Now, this is not a course in religion,” Salloway explains. “It’s a course in scientific method. If you read the story of the Exodus as an epidemiologist, and if the sequence of events does not make sense in terms of the science, you have to throw the story out as mythology. Alternatively, if you can’t disprove the story on the basis of science, you don’t prove that it’s true, disqualify it as truth, or fail to debunk it.”

“So, we go through this analysis in class and suddenly a sense of awe and wonder emerges. Maybe we don’t have to separate faith and science entirely and say they are irreconcilable. Maybe there is a unity to both perceptions of the universe. Maybe we can use our scientific method to find that unity.”

Salloway reflects on the typical response of his students. “Some walk out and say ‘that was stupid, what a waste of time.’ But the other response is just wonderful. They’ll say, ‘I never understood all that. You put everything into perspective in a way I just didn’t anticipate.’

“The world is filled with wonder,” says Salloway. “To be able to step back from your deductive science and to see that wonder is the most phenomenal gift you can inspire.”

—Michael J. Jones,
University Publications