"Balancing Personal Freedom with Public Good: Controversies in Public Health" will be Dr. Ross Kauffman's topic for Bluffton University's annual civic engagement lecture, at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 27, in Founders Hall.

Free and open to the public, the Bluffton Forum presentation is in keeping with the university's 2011-12 civic engagement theme, "Public Health: Promoting Wellness for Self and Community."

Kauffman, an assistant professor of public health at Bluffton, earned both his master's and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University, in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He holds a bachelor's degree in biology and environmental science from Eastern Mennonite University.

At Ohio State, Kauffman was a University Fellow in 2005, was named Outstanding M.S./Ph.D. Student in the School of Public Health in 2006 and received the OSU Board of Trustees' Student Recognition Award in 2007.

In 2009-10, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Training in Research for Behavioral Oncology and Cancer Control program in Indiana University's School of Nursing, at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

His public health research has involved work with a variety of populations, including the Amish, Appalachian communities, and prisoners. He was the principal investigator in a two-year, Centers for Disease Control-funded study of smoking and tobacco in Ohio prisons, and he continues to collaborate on several projects in the area of tobacco prevention and cessation.