Farewell to a colleague
After 24 years at SDU, Gabriel Gulis says goodbye
Associate Professor Gabriel Gulis is retiring after 24 years at the Research Unit for Health Promotion in Esbjerg, part of the Department of Public Health. As one of the key figures behind the development of the Public Health programme, Gabriel has helped establish an academic foundation that generations of students and researchers have continued to build on. He leaves behind not only a long research career, but also an extensive international network and a lasting impact on the people he has worked with.
Some researchers’ impact is reflected first and foremost in publication lists, research projects and academic titles. And then there are researchers whose impact is also particularly evident in the relationships and academic communities they have helped to build.
Gabriel Gulis belongs to both groups.
When he retires on 31 August after 24 years at the Research Unit for Health Promotion at SDU in Esbjerg, his colleagues will therefore be saying goodbye to more than an experienced associate professor and senior researcher. They will also be saying goodbye to a colleague who, for more than two decades, has brought his wealth of experience, his personality and an extensive international network to the university.
Esbjerg with a view to the world
Gabriel Gulis’ career has been international from the very beginning. He is originally from Slovakia, where his academic background included nuclear chemistry and environmental health before public health became the main focus of his research.
His career later brought him to Denmark and SDU. But he brought his international outlook with him.
Over the years, Gabriel Gulis has built up an extensive network of researchers and professionals across national borders. He has collaborated internationally, including with WHO and European research environments, and has supervised younger researchers from different parts of the world.
For the Research Unit for Health Promotion in Esbjerg, this has meant that the distance between Esbjerg and the wider world has often felt shorter whenever Gabriel was in the room. Time and again, Gabriel has helped colleagues find the right partners for projects and international collaborations.
He has also repeatedly supported interdisciplinary groups of SDU master’s degree students in taking part in competitions for public health projects in Atlanta, organised by the Centers for Disease Control, thereby making a major contribution to opening up international environments to students.
At the same time, it is difficult to separate the international network from the person behind it. Networks are not created through conferences, research projects and business cards alone, but through relationships that endure.
24 years leave their mark
Twenty-four years in the same workplace is a long time. At a university, it means generations of students, PhD students and colleagues, research projects, new collaborations and people coming and going.
Gabriel Gulis has been part of much of the history and development of the Research Unit for Health Promotion. His retirement will therefore be felt.
- Gabriel is a leading academic figure in Public Health and Global Health. We will miss his tremendous commitment, creativity and dedication to promoting health, preventing disease and building capacity for research and education - not least in low- and middle-income countries, says Professor Charlotte Overgaard, head of research at the unit. She continues:
- But above all, we will miss him as a person, colleague and mentor: his kindness, helpfulness and openness towards others. Gabriel is an inclusive person who naturally reaches out to others and takes great pleasure in seeing colleagues, younger researchers and students succeed. He has meant an incredible amount to our unit and to the people who have had the pleasure of working with him.
One of the academic threads running through Gabriel Gulis’ career began as far back as 1999. At a WHO meeting in Verona, he first encountered Health Impact Assessment - the process of assessing how decisions and initiatives in society affect people’s health.
This marked the beginning of an academic path that has followed him ever since, from Slovakia via the United States to Denmark and throughout an international research career.
But after 24 years, the journey is now drawing to a close. We are not saying goodbye entirely, however. Following his retirement, Gabriel will become editor-in-chief of the journal International Journal of Public Health and will remain affiliated with the Research Unit for Health Promotion and the Department of Public Health as a visiting researcher, where he will continue his work as a mentor to our younger researchers.