2004 Accolades
Current accolades
ARCHIVES: 2004, 2003, 2002
Fall 2004
Gillian Mayman, a Michigan
SPH Public Health Library & Informatics staff member, has been awarded a National Library of Medicine Fellowship
for Informationist Training, beginning January 2005. Informationist fellows
pursue an individually tailored program that includes formal coursework,
practicum experience, and a research project that focuses on the application
of information technology in a health sciences discipline. Mayman will
work within Public Health Library & Informatics to expand public health
informatics training and will work with local health departments in Michigan
to assess information needs and to develop online, competency-based informatics
resources.
M. Elaine (Seidenwand) Auld,
HB/HE '78 and a member of the Michigan SPH Alumni
Society Board of Governors, has been appointed chair of the Action
Board of the American Public Health Association. She is also a founding
board member of the Campaign for Public Health, dedicated to increasing
the CDC's appropriations.
 Department
of Environmental Health Sciences student Lauren Zajac has been selected
as a 2004 APHA Environment Section Student Scholarship recipient. The
award applied toward costs associated with attending the 2004 American
Public Health Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C. in November;
the theme of the meeting was "Environment and Public Health." Zajac's
presentation was "Environmental Justice in Dearborn, MI: The Health
and Social Impacts of the Detroit Intermodal Freight Terminal (DIFT) on
the Arab American Community."
More on Michigan
SPH at APHA, including a recap of presentations by students and faculty.
Highlights from some other Michigan
SPH awards at APHA:
- Melissa Slotnick (PhD candidate in Environmental Health Sciences):
Her presentation on "Application of a Space-Time Information System
(STIS) to Assess Arsenic Exposure in Drinking Water" won a Student Achievement
Award and was a first prize winner in the Environmental Health Section
Student Poster Showcase (other
winners).
- Debbie Barrington (PhD student in Epidemiology and CRECH): Her paper
on "Intergenerational Relationships between Socioeconomic Factors
and Low Birth Weight among African-American and White Women" was
selected for an Outstanding Student Papers in Maternal and Child Health
award.
- Sam Harper (PhD student in Epidemiology and CSEPH) won an APHA Epidemiology
Section Award as one of the top student papers for "Is Social Capital
Associated with All Causes of Death?"
- Ruth Nelson Knollmueller, MPH '68, RN, PhD received the Creative
Achievement Award from the Public Health Nursing Section.
James
H. Vincent, professor of Environmental Health Sciences, has been elected
a fellow of the Royal Society
of Chemistry, the largest European-based organization for the advancement
of chemical sciences. An authority on aerosol science, exposure assessment,
and environmental and occupational health, Vincent, whose degrees are
all in physics, said his election "goes to show that all the various
disciplines seem to merge when we are discussing the environment."
The SPH-based Michigan Interdisciplinary
Center on Social Inequalities, Mind, and Body has received a new award
of $5 million from the National Institutes of Health, the maximum available
in this round of funding. George Kaplan of the center explains, "The award will support the expansion of
this innovative interdisciplinary research program seeking to understand
the role of socioeconomic, psychosocial, social, community, and psychological
factors in health and health disparities, and the pathophysiologic pathways
through which these factors contribute to the development of physical
and mental disorders. The research will encompass human development over
the full life course from infancy and childhood through adulthood and
older age, consider a broad range of physical and mental health outcomes,
with some emphasis on aging, human development, and cardiovascular disease,
and have important foci on health disparities, life course approaches,
spatial analysis/neighborhood effects, gene-environment interaction, and
methodological innovation." With a total of $15 million now received from
NIH in support of these goals, the center has assembled a team of researchers
covering more than 22 disciplines.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of
Labor for Occupational Safety and Health John Henshaw, MPH '74, was awarded
a 2004 Distinguished Alumni Service Award by the Alumni Association of
the University of Michigan at a ceremony in Ann Arbor on October 7, 2004.
The award, which is presented annually, recognizes alumni who have distinguished
themselves "by reason of services performed on behalf of the University
of Michigan, or in connection with its organized alumni activities." It
is the highest honor the alumni association can bestow upon an alumna/us
on behalf of the university. More
info.
Bradford Mathis, MHSA '95, has
been named one of Modern Healthcare magazine's 2004 Up & Comers. Mathis is director of community-benefit
integration at St. Mary's Health Care in Grand Rapids, Mich. The September
20, 2004 issue of Modern Healthcare said, "Using enthusiasm, persistence
and an affable personality, Bradford Mathis strives to provide poor, inner-city
residents with the same quality of healthcare available to affluent suburban
residents."
The University of Michigan Tobacco
Research Network has awarded fall 2004 internal grants to three SPH
faculty members working on the following projects:
More information on these projects
and the other two that were awarded grants can be found on UMTRN's
News & Events page; the call for proposals for another round of
funding is scheduled for spring 2005.
 David
Michael Green, MPH '82, has been named a 2004 MacArthur Fellow. The John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation calls Green a "technology
transfer innovator, pioneering the manufacture and delivery
of health care technologies for the developing world." In India,
Green established Aurolab to manufacture intraocular lenses (IOLs) –
plastic implants used to restore sight to patients suffering from cataracts
and other eye diseases. By expanding the company's manufacturing capacity
to include low-cost needles and sutures, Green has opened opportunities
to restore vision and treat other diseases for millions of people. More
info.
Martin
Philbert, Michigan SPH senior associate dean for research and professor
of toxicology, is among the five UM professors named as fellows in the
Committee on Institutional Cooperation's (CIC) Academic Leadership Program
for 2004-05. More
info.
Summer 2004
Betsy
Foxman, UM SPH professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases,
has been elected president of the American
College of Epidemiology (ACE) for 2005-2006. She is the first University
of Michigan faculty member elected to lead this group. Founded in 1979,
ACE serves the interests of its members through sponsorship of scientific
meetings, publications and educational activities, recognizing outstanding
contributions to the field and advocating for issues pertinent to epidemiology.
 Linda
M. Chatters, UM SPH associate professor of Health Behavior & Health
Education, has been selected as a Fellow of the Behavioral and Social
Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America, which is a
recognition of outstanding contributions to the field. She has also recently
been designated by Thomson-ISI as a Highly Cited Researcher in the category
of general social sciences, which identifies her as one of the world's
most cited authors (comprising less than one half of one percent of all
publishing researchers). Chatters’ research focuses on the family
and social support networks of older black adults, as well as the predictors
and consequences of religious involvement within the African American
population.
The Medical Library Association
Encyclopedic Guide to Searching and Finding Health Information on the
Web, co-edited by Michigan SPH Director of Public
Health Informatics Nancy J. Allee, received a starred lead review
in the July 15 issue of Library Journal. "This impressive
reference comprises an entire course in how to find consumer health information,"
the review stated. Allee co-edited the print/CD-ROM guide with P.F. Anderson,
head librarian of the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Twenty
leading medical librarians collaborated. Neal-Schuman Publishers released
the guide in spring 2004. More info: press
release and website.
 Nichole
Miller, a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences toxicology program, has been selected
to receive a predoctoral traineeship in the highly competitive Pharmacological
Sciences Training Program (PSTP). Funded by the NIH, the PSTP is an interdisciplinary
program at UM that provides research, education, and financial support
opportunities for students majoring in pharmacology, biological chemistry,
medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics, physiology, or toxicology. Miller
is doing her dissertation research in Professor Rudy
Richardson's lab at SPH.
Midwest Eye-Banks has chosen
Susan d’Olive Mozena, who received her MHSA from Michigan SPH in
1984, as its president and CEO. Midwest Eye-Banks is a not-for-profit
organization dedicated to the restoration of sight. It provided corneas
for surgical transplantation to more than 3,000 people in 2003.
Spring 2004
 UM
SPH's "Future of Public Health" brochure (1 MB PDF) garnered
a 2004 Addy Award from the Ann Arbor Ad Club for Savitski Design of Ann
Arbor, which produced the publication for the school. The brochure, edited
by Leslie Stainton in the UM SPH Office of Communications, illustrates
the various problems that challenge the field of public health and also
describes how the School of Public Health is addressing these challenges.
Explains Don Hammond of Savitski Design, "For the lead image [at
right], the child staring out with luminous eyes is surrounded by images
of issues that could affect her future, including environmental degradation,
biotechnology, problems of aging populations, the fight against disease,
overcrowding, and even bioterrorism."
SPH Thomas Francis Collegiate
Professor of Public Health George Kaplan gave the presidential address on "Searching for Simplicity in a Complex
World" at the annual meetings of the Society for Epidemiologic Research
(SER) in Salt Lake City in June. UM's Department of Epidemiology and Center
for Social Epidemiology and Population Health were well represented at
the meetings, with six faculty members leading sessions and giving presentations.
SPH doctoral students and recent grads also presented, and Katie Stamatakis
earned a first-place poster award for "Socioeconomic Disparities
in Restricted and Disturbed Sleep".
 University
of Michigan School of Public Health Dean Noreen
Clark, who is Marshall H. Becker Professor of Public Health and Professor
of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, presented the 2004 Leonard Ponder
Distinguished Lecture at Texas A&M University in April. Clark outlined
pressing issues in health education and practice. She discussed how national
security threats, new diseases, a deteriorating environment, and unhealthy
lifestyles make public health "a turbulent field to enter."
She said the biggest challenge facing public health educators is dealing
with the complexity of 21st century problems. She advised health professionals
to develop partnerships with the people they wish to help, to learn their
motivations and teach them how to become their own health educators.
The University of Michigan Board
of Regents, at their May meeting, approved the appointment of Rita
Loch-Caruso, as interim chair of the SPH Department of Environmental
Health Sciences, effective July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2005. The regents
also approved recommendations for promotion and/or tenure of the following
SPH faculty members:
- From associate professor with tenure to professor with tenure: Michael Chernew, HMP; Mary Haan, epidemiology; Sioban Harlow, epidemiology;
Marcia Inhorn, HBHE; Peter Jacobson, HMP; Harold Neighbors, HBHE; Martin
Philbert, EHS toxicology; Mark Wilson, epidemiology.
- From associate professor without tenure to professor without
tenure: Gerald Keeler, geological sciences, LSA (also professor
of environmental health sciences, with tenure, SPH).
- From assistant professor to associate professor with tenure: Stephen Gruber, internal medicine (also from assistant professor
to associate professor of epidemiology, without tenure).
The University of Michigan School of Public Health "Recognizing Excellence
in Staff Service" (RESSP) program held a May 4 reception to express
appreciation to all SPH staff members for their service and accomplishments
throughout the year. Employees celebrating 10, 20, and 30 years of service
at the school were honored at the reception. Also, four staff members
were selected by the RESSP committee for 2004
awards: Patty Bradley, Rachel Flint, Terry Gliedt, and Theresa Ramirez.
 Arnold
Monto, UM SPH professor of epidemiology, in March began a 2004-2005
term as president of the American Epidemiological Society. He is the second
faculty member from the University of Michigan to be elected to lead this
75-year-old group. The first was Thomas Francis Jr., a professor and chair
of the SPH Department of Epidemiology who conducted the field trials that
in 1955 proved the polio vaccine safe and effective.
Throughout
Dr. Monto's term as president, he will have stewardship of the society's
prized artifact. It is a section of a wooden water pipe dating to London's
mid-19th century cholera outbreak, when pioneer epidemiologist John Snow
showed that the disease was being transmitted via the water supply. The
stand for the wood cross-section has a plate engraved with the names of
former American Epidemiological Society presidents. (Photo by Peter Smith.)
 The
Ohio State University College of Optometry has appointed Melvin D. Shipp
as its new dean. Dr. Shipp, who received his DrPH from UM SPH in 1996,
comes to OSU from University of Alabama Birmingham School of Optometry,
where he was a professor of optometry; he formerly served as director
of the Optometric Technician Program in the School of Public and Allied
Health. Only the second optometrist to receive the DrPH degree and the
first to do so through the Pew Health Policy Doctoral Fellowship Program
at the University of Michigan, Shipp has been a consultant, panelist,
and grant reviewer for the FDA, the National Institutes of Health, and
other federal institutions.
 The
University of Michigan Clinical Ligand Assay Service Satellite (CLASS)
laboratory recently received national accreditation with distinction from
the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Commission on Laboratory Accreditation.
The CLASS lab, which was established in 1984 and is part of the UM SPH
Department of Epidemiology, along with its director, Daniel McConnell,
were congratulated by CAP "for the excellence of the services being
provided."
Cathy Spivey-Paul, FACHE, who
received her MHSA from UM SPH in 1992, has been elected to the Council
of Regents, the legislative body of the American College of Healthcare
Executives (ACHE), as Regent for the Department of Veterans Affairs-Eastern
Region. She currently serves as Associate Director of VA Illiana Health
Care System in Danville, Illinois.
Winter 2004
Janet
Gilsdorf, MD, is the recipient of this year's Sarah Goddard Power
Award, presented by the University's Academic Women's Caucus to a distinguished
woman faculty member. Dr. Gilsdorf is a professor of epidemiology at UM
SPH and a UM professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases.
James
"Jim" Koopman, University of Michigan School of Public Health
professor of epidemiology, was recently appointed to the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) study section on AIDS
Clinical Studies and Epidemiology. His appointment on the study section
continues through 2007. |
Site Menu
back to top