The East Tennessee State University College of Public Health will welcome award-winning bluegrass artist Becky Buller as part of its Leading Voices in Public Health lecture series, highlighting the intersection of music, mental health and community well-being.
The event marks the 11th installment of the “Evening of Health, Wellness and the Arts,” a subset of the Leading Voices series that began nearly 13 years ago. The broader lecture series launched in 2007 and has brought nearly 100 experts to campus to discuss topics ranging from infectious diseases and clean water to health equity.
“This is a lecture series that we started back in 2007,” said Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health. “Over the years, we brought in almost 100 people from the outside who are experts in all sorts of different things.”
The Evening of Health, Wellness and the Arts was designed to feature performing artists who use their craft to explore health issues, often their own. Past guests have included a playwright who turned his experience with a brain tumor into a one-act comedy, as well as filmmakers, comedians and magicians.
“The whole idea is that someone from an artistic background can explore their own or someone else’s health issues,” Wykoff said.
Buller, an ETSU alumna, is widely recognized in bluegrass circles, earning approximately a dozen honors from the International Bluegrass Music Association, including awards for Fiddler of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. Last year, she was named ETSU’s 2025 Distinguished Alumna in the Arts. Her recent album addresses her personal struggles with depression and anxiety, a theme that drew the attention of university leaders.
“A year ago, she recorded an album that talks about her struggling with depression and anxiety,” Wykoff said. “The whole album is sort of addressing that, and that’s how she came to our attention.”
Wykoff said the event reflects ETSU’s strengths in both health and the arts, particularly bluegrass and Appalachian studies. The program is sponsored by the College of Public Health, the College of Arts and Sciences, Bluegrass, Appalachian Studies and the Alumni Association.
“I hope that it brings two groups of students together — those who study the arts, and those who study health,” Wykoff said. “You’d better understand a health issue when you hear it through the voice of a person who’s gone through that issue.”
He added that public health professionals can become so focused on disease that they risk overlooking the human experience behind it.
“Sometimes in health, we get so focused on the disease that we don’t hear the person,” Wykoff said. “This is a great way to hear the person who can express it through her music.”
The event also speaks to broader health challenges facing the region, including higher rates of smoking, sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, poverty and limited access to education — all factors that influence well-being.
“The good news is ETSU addresses all of those,” Wykoff said. “We have really great programs in all of them.”
Wykoff, who plans to retire at the end of the semester, said he hopes the series will continue building connections between disciplines and the broader community.
“All public health, like all politics, is local,” he said. “You’ve got to have local people who really buy into what needs to be done to improve health. We’re lucky to have a community here that’s really focused on health.”
Leading Voices in Public Health: Becky Buller will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, in the Powell Recital Hall of the Martin Center for the Arts
The event is free and open to the public.
