Charles J. Hardy, a member of Georgia Public Health Association, received an executive appointment from Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to the state Advisory Council for Public Health.

According to Georgia Department of Community Health, the council “is responsible for providing assistance and guidance to the Division of Public Heath and DCH on all matters regarding public health programs, which include Health Promotion & Disease Prevention, Maternal & Child Health, Infectious Disease and Immunizations, Environmental Health, Epidemiology, the State Laboratory Programs, and Vital Records.”

Hardy is a professor and the founding dean of Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. His professional affiliations have included the American Psychological Association, both the American and the Georgia Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and both the American and Georgia Public Health Association. He is the chairman of the Administrative Committee on Public Health for the University System of Georgia, and he was named a 2009 Distinguished Educator/Researcher by the Georgia Rural Health Association. Hardy earned a bachelor’s degree from East Carolina University, a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee, and a doctoral degree from Louisiana State University. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina. He and his wife, Rebecca, have two children.