2004 Accolades

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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:

Peter Mancuso, EHS: “Effect of low-tar cigarette smoke-exposure on pulmonary antibacterial host defense”
Daniel Eisenberg, HMP: "Effect of smoking on body weight"
Edward Zellers, EHS: "Rapid determination of airborne ETS markers with a novel field instrument”

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".

Dean Clark photo 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.

Monto with plaque 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.