LCDR Rohini Suraj

Force Health Protection/Environmental Health Officer

U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command

Norfolk, VA 23511

Biography

LCDR Rohini Suraj, MSC, USN, has a M.S. in Environmental Health (Jan 1994), Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), a Bachelor degree in Biology, with Honors, cum laude (Jan 1990), Baruch College, CUNY, a Diploma in National Security Strategy, Naval War College (Jun 2003), and a Certificate in Financial Planning Old Dominion University (Jun 2005). She also holds the REHS/RS certification from the National Environmental Health Association.

Rohini has worked in the Environmental Public Health field for 16 years. The first five of which was spent working in the Environmental Health Division of New York City Dept of Health. During the last 11 years, LCDR Suraj has worked as an Environmental Health Officer in the U.S. Navy, protecting the health and welfare of Navy and Marine Corps forces. During her career she has traveled extensively, and seen and dealt with a variety of environmental public health issues, some of which not normally seen in the U.S.

She has received several civilian and military awards. Among them are the Hunter College Alumni Achievement Award for her contribution to Public Health. The award was presented to her at the Hunter College Urban Public Health Program's 30th Anniversary celebration on May 31, 2001, in New York City.

Rohini is a member of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) – Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian, Tidewater Environmental Health Association, and Association of Medical Service Corps Officers of Tidewater

What I Learned at EPHLI

I was excited upon my selection to be part of the first class of the Environmental Public Health Leadership Institute. I did not know what to expect or what the outcome would be, but I had high hopes that the program would be enlightening and useful in my environmental public heath career. The entire program surpassed my expectations and my leadership skills are much more honed and improved because of the knowledge I gained. Working on my project helped me focus on improving my community to keep highly trained people in the field of environmental public health. I found out that these goals were in line with the National, CDC and IOM goals. This validates my thoughts about my community and proved to me that I have developed as a leader to be able to see the big picture.

Networking with state and local health officials from various health departments throughout the U.S. improved my outreach and give me instant recognition among this group of professionals. This will help when I need to contact them in the future or in worst-case scenario, if there is a national disaster, we will all need the instant rapport to get things done.

I was surprised by the depth of the curriculum, and the length that the University of St. Louis went to make this program interesting and successful. Even though I did not attend the last two sessions due to unfortunate events, I and all the others students in the course looked forward to each session. The skills I received from the program, including the self study sessions and self analysis are helping me become a better person and in turn a much more effective leader. These are skills that will stay with me for my lifetime. Thank you EPHLI, CDC, the mentors, and University of St. Louis for pulling it all together. Also a Navy’s Bravo Zulu to Nicole Kozma for making it all happen!