The UNC Division of Public Health was organized in 1936 within the
UNC School of Medicine. Separate status as a school of public health was granted in 1940, making the school the first school of public health established within a state university. The school awarded its first graduate degrees in 1940.
Milton Rosenau became the first director of the Division of Public Health in 1936 and served as the first dean of the School from 1939 to 1946. In 1949, both the
UNC School of Dentistry and UNC School of Nursing were added. Along with the Schools of Public Health, Medicine and Pharmacy, the five schools formally became the University's Division of Health Affairs. The school was named after donors Joan Gillings and
Dennis Gillings, a former biostatistics instructor at UNC Chapel Hill and the founder of
IQVIA. In 2018, the Gillings School launched its online Master of Public Health program. In 2020, the school focused its resources on combating the spread of the
COVID-19 global pandemic, with various research teams tackling a broad range of topics including vaccines, testing, epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy and more. == Notable faculty ==