After 44 years, Kerry Redican retires from pioneering public health

In his more than four decades at Virginia Tech, Kerry Redican has helped nurture a burgeoning public health program and provided leadership and service to the university throughout that time.  

Redican retired at the end of 2025 following a 44-year career that spanned the development of the university's Master of Public Health program and two prior iterations of it, the creation of its undergraduate public health degree, and three terms as Faculty Senate president.

Born in Illinois, he spent much of his young life and college years in California, then returned to Illinois for his doctorate, expecting to return to California for his career.  

"It just never happened," he said. "Life took me other places."  

Redican is appreciative of the more than four decades he has spent at Virginia Tech while looking forward to the future, both his and that of the degree programs he has helped nurture from seedlings.  

"Even though it hasn't always been a smooth ride, I've appreciated the experiences I've had because they have helped me grow as a professional," he said. "I couldn't think of a better place to be. We've had supportive deans and an administration that's been supportive. We've had nothing but support."  

Starting public health from scratch  

Redican was a professor of public health and the co-author of five textbooks and more than 70 publications in health journals. He concludes his Virginia Tech career as director of the undergraduate public health program in the Department of Population Health Sciences within the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. He has taught an array of undergraduate and graduate courses, including program development in health education, comparative health care and public health systems, and public health policy and administration.

He joined the university's former College of Education in 1981, where he was tasked with developing a community health education program. Within the next two years, he helped redesign and repurpose the undergraduate program in community health and developed a Master of Science in Community Health program. This was essentially Virginia Tech's first public health-type degree.  

But in the early 1990s, the College of Education refocused its mission, and programs like community health education were phased out or moved. The college eventually brought back a Master of Science in Health Promotion, which Redican helped deliver through innovative distance learning methods, including broadcast technology to remote sites in Roanoke and Abingdon, and eventually online.  

But interest in a full-fledged Master of Public Health program intensified early 2000s as the university developed its medical school in Roanoke in collaboration with Carilion Clinic. Redican said the new Master of Public Health (MPH) interest was driven largely by two key figures: François Elvinger, then an epidemiologist and professor in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, and Cynda Ann Johnson, the founding dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.  

"I would argue that the reason the Master of Public Health program exists at Virginia Tech is largely because of Cynda Johnson," Redican said. "She was a champion for the program and convinced Virginia Tech administration and the Board of Visitors that we needed an MPH program."

At that same time, Susan Marmagas, a nationally respected public health professional and Blacksburg native with years of experience, including work with the public health accrediting agency, the Council on Education for Public Health, joined the Master of Public Health development team.

Elvinger, Redican, and Marmagas developed the program, which eventually became part of the veterinary college. Redican, too, joined the veterinary college in 2010 after nearly three decades at Virginia Tech. A new department in the veterinary college, the Department of Population Health Sciences, was created to house the approved Master of Public Health.  

A few years later, Redican was tasked with another challenge: Starting an undergraduate public health program.  

"I said, 'I've done it before. I can do it again. It's no problem,'" Redican said.  

Developing the Bachelor of Science in public health took three years of planning and approvals. The program welcomed its first students in fall 2018 and now has about 400 students majoring in public health and 150 taking it as a minor.

A new home at Virginia Tech  

After three years of enduring bitter winters and tornado warnings on the faculty of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, then three years of sweating through sun-baked summers at Arizona State University, Redican found a Goldilocks “not too hot, not too cold” climate choice at Virginia Tech in 1981. 

In the process, he found far more than just comfortable weather that kept him in Blacksburg, where he married and raised children, for over four decades.  

When he interviewed at Virginia Tech in spring 1981, "I really liked the university, college, faculty, and the community, liked everything about it," Redican said. "I couldn't think of a better place to be.”  

Redican became deeply involved in university governance, serving on numerous department, college, and university committees and as Faculty Senate president three times over four decades.  

His third term as Faculty Senate president coincided with the April 16th tragedy.  

As Faculty Senate president, he spoke during the spring graduation ceremony and addressed the parents of the students who received honorary degrees posthumously. It was, Redican said, a painful moment he will never forget.  

"It changes you forever when you're that close to it.”

Looking ahead

Redican is optimistic about the future of public health at Virginia Tech, with the 2025 hirings of Ela Austin, associate dean for public health programs; Jan Eberth, head of the Department of Population Health Sciences, following Laura Hungerford, who is returning to research and teaching after successfully serving as department head and moving the program forward to a point where the master of public health program achieved national recognition; Kristi Lewis, program director for the bachelor of science in public health; and Nicole Holt, the Master of Public Health program director.

"All four of them are excellent, and they will continue to move the programs forward," Redican said. "They’re bringing in a fresh perspective, and that’s welcome. Laura Hungerford is leaving a program that's in excellent shape. So it’s a handing off of the baton that will be a smooth transition."

In retirement, Redican plans to continue volunteering with the Montgomery County Prevention Partners, the Roanoke Prevention Wellness Council, and the Virginia Healthy Youth Foundation. He will continue as an associate editor for one journal and a contributing editor for another.  

He expects to continue writing letters of reference for students for some time.  

"The relationships continue," Redican said. "In two years or so, I’ll be out of the institutional memory. The institution lives on. It was here before us, and it will be here after us."