robert s gold is a researcher in the application of computer technology to health education and health promotion his publications include more than seventy research and evaluation articles dozens of pieces of software for organizations such as the american cancer society and the department of defense commercially published software including healthquest and abledata and several textbooks gold is professor of health education and dean of the school of public health at the university of maryland college parkhe earned an associate of science from orange county community college in 1967 followed by a bs in biology from the state university of new york at brockport in 1969 he earned his ms in health education at the same school two years later gold earned a phd in health education from the university of oregon in 1976 and a drph with a specialization in community health practice from the university of texas school of public health at houston in 1980 he was an instructor in suny brockports department of health science 19701974 before earning his phd and returned there as assistant professor from 1976 through 1978 after completing the degree while working on his second doctorate he served as an evaluator for the texas department of mental health and mental retardation he next joined the faculty of southern illinois university at carbondale siuc in 1980 as associate professor of health education he received a leave of absence from siuc in 1984 to serve as director of the school health initiative of the us department of health and human services in 1986 he joined the faculty of the university of maryland college park as professor of health education from 1988 through 1989 he joined the world health organization where he was invited to help reestablish whos division of health educationhealth promotion in 1990 he began dividing his time between the university of maryland and macro international where he became vice president and director of public health research in 1994 in 1999 he returned to a fulltime faculty position at the university of maryland and became chair of umds department of public and community health since july 2002 gold has been dean of the school of public health college of health and human performance prior to 2005 at the university of maryland at college park he is also the director of the public health informatics lab at umd a research and evaluation lab that heavily emphasizes multimediabased training and educational applications gold works in the application of advanced technologies to health education ranging from interactive video and computer software to knowledge management decision support and expert systems technology during his years at suny brockport he partnered with david f duncan in offering a course on computers in health education in 1980 gold and duncan published two papers on the use of computers in health education the second of these explored the potential of personal computers several years later at southern illinois university gold and duncan taught the first course on pcbased health education during his tenure at siuc he spent several summers at the university of cologne where he collaborated with klaus klein in developing applications of computers in health education beginning in 1983 gold wrote a regular column in the journal of health education entitled computing health