Joyce Cohen Lashof

Joyce Cohen Lashof (March 27, 1926 in Philadelphia – June 4, 2022) was an American physician, public health expert and advocate for health equity. She was the first woman to head a state public health department and the first woman to serve as dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life and education Lashof graduated from Duke University in 1946, followed by the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital.

Career Lashof was hired as assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago and received a series of 1-year contracts. When she asked for a standard 3-year appointment, the department chair told her that “he would never give a married woman a tenured track appointment because she would leave and go where her husband's career took him”.

Personal life and death Lashof was married to Richard Lashof, a math professor at the University of Chicago and had three children, Judith, who died in 2018, Carol, and Dan.

Lashof died of heart failure on June 4, 2022 in Berkeley, aged 96 years.