UNH hosts remote hooding ceremony for public health official

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

From left: UNH Provost Wayne Jones; UNH Senior Vice Provost for Research, Economic Engagement and Outreach Marian McCord; Beth Daly '02, chief of the Bureau of Infectious Disease Control at New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services; UNH President James Dean.

Because even top public health officials aren’t immune to COVID-19 restrictions, UNH brought the pomp and circumstance to one of the most public faces of New Hampshire’s coronavirus response.

Beth Daly ’02, chief of the Bureau of Infectious Disease Control at New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services, received her Doctor of Public Health from the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health in May 2020, but commencement ceremonies there were postponed and the traditional “hooding” ceremony cancelled. So UNH, which has partnered with Daly and her colleagues throughout the pandemic, marked her academic achievements in Durham recently.

Provost Wayne Jones  — also a UNC alumnus — and Marian McCord, senior vice provost for research, economic engagement and outreach and co-chair of UNH’s COVID testing and tracing committee, hooded Daly in a ceremony presided over by UNH President James Dean and UNC Gillings School Dean Barbara Rimer via Zoom. UNH Chief Paul Dean, co-chair of the testing and tracing committee, and Daly’s family also participated.

“As a UNH undergraduate alumna, it’s wonderful that UNH offered to provide me with the opportunity to be hooded after my UNC hooding ceremony was cancelled due to COVID,” said Daly. “The hooding ceremony is an important recognition of achieving a doctoral degree and having UNH and UNC give me this experience together really brought my educational journey full circle.”

“Beth and her team have been valuable partners as we’ve navigated the COVID-19 pandemic at UNH and here in New Hampshire,” said McCord. “We were happy to help her celebrate this remarkable achievement.”