2006 Accolades
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Autumn 2006
The New England College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has selected Howard Hu, chair of the UM SPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences, as recipient of this year's Harriet Hardy Award. This prestigious award in occupational medicine recognizes outstanding service and dedication by a clinician. Presentation of the award takes place at the organization's annual conference on Dec. 1.
UM SPH's Sadaf Shaukat was one of 21 UM students to be awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for 2006 -07 (only Yale, Harvard, and Brown produced more Fulbright winners this year). A student of Environmental Health Sciences, Saukat says, "I am interested in the health implications of Jordan's water crisis,
especially on the most vulnerable sector of the population -- young
children. More specifically, I would like to focus on the distribution of
the second most serious killer of children under 5: childhood diarrhea. I would like to conduct research on the socio-economic disparities relating to water availability, consumption, and quality of supply within the city of Amman."
UM SPH Health Management & Policy students Salewa Oyelaran, Ike Mmeje, and Aisha Taylor were awarded a first-place finish in the Everett V. Fox Student Case Competition sponsored by the National Association of Health Services Executives. For the second year in a row, HMP students have earned first place in this national competition. The National Association of Health Services Executives is a non-profit association for African American healthcare executives. It was founded in 1968, with a mission to promote African American leadership in the healthcare field and to improve health service delivery to underserved and minority communities. The case competition uses case study methodology to provide students with the opportunity to enhance their analytical and presentation skills while representing their schools.
UM SPH Findings magazine has received the "Pride of CASE V Award" in the category "Best Specialized or Unit Level Magazine." The award is being presented to Findings editor Leslie Stainton and the UM SPH Office of Communications in December at the Case V conference in Chicago. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) is the premier professional association for educational advancement. This award comes from Region V, which includes Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Toby Citrin, adjunct professor of Health Management and Policy, is the recipient of the first-ever President's Lifetime Achievement Award conferred jointly by the presidents of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health (MALPH) and the Michigan Public Health Association (MPHA).
This award is reserved for an individual "whose career in public health has been exemplary and leaves a legacy that is not likely to be matched by others in the field."
 Amy Schulz, research associate professor in the UM SPH department of Health Behavior and Health Education and associate director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, has received the2006 University of Michigan Research Faculty Achievement Award. The award is given for outstanding scholarly achievements, as represented by significant contributions to an academic field of study over time, a specific outstanding discovery or the development of innovative technology. The award was presented in an Oct. 4 ceremony on campus.
Summer 2006
The National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA) recognized UM SPH Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology Hunein "John" Maassab at its 28th annual national meeting in September for "outstanding contributions to
science and medicine." Dr. Maassab delivered remarks,
in which he explained the complex and slow process he went through in developing and testing the FluMist vaccine at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Renee Bayer, MHSA '83 and current Community Academic Liaison Coordinator in the UM SPH Office of Public Health Practice, has been elected chair of the Board of Community Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) for 2006. CCPH is a national nonprofit organization that promotes health (broadly defined) through partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions.
 Robyn Nolan, Dina Kurz, and Jeanette Kunnath (left to right in photo) of the Michigan Public Health Training Center in the UM SPH Office of Public Health Practice were finalists for the University of
Michigan Human Resources 2006 Exemplary Team Award. They were recognized for bringing the MPHTC from serving fewer than 250 members of the Michigan public health workforce in 2003 to reaching almost 5,000 participants in the past year--throughout Michigan, nationally, and in more than 25 countries.
UM SPH Professor of Epidemiology Siobán Harlow has been reappointed to another three-year term on the Scientific and Technical
Advisory Group of the Reproductive Health and Research Department of the World Health Organization.
Spring 2006
 "The Last Mile," a video produced last year in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine trial announcement, won a regional Emmy in the category of Health/Science Program Feature Segment. The award was presented at a ceremony in Detroit on June 17. Chris Cook and Metrocom International/UM TV2 produced the documentary, which was commissioned by the University of Michigan. The documentary tells the story of Dr. Thomas Francis Jr., who conducted the Salk vaccine field trials that involved almost two million children nationwide. It features appearances by professors Arnold Monto and Howard Markel, as well as other members of the UM community. View the 15-minute video at www.polio.umich.edu.
University of Michigan School of Public Health students represent 6 of the 12 fellows selected for the 2006 Association of Schools of Public Health/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Fellows program. Placements for the yearlong ASPH/EPA program begin in June, with the possibility of a second-year extension. ASPH/EPA fellows from UM SPH include
Joshua Bennett, Julia Gray, Carrie Knowlton, Tina Moore, Stephanie Ross, and Erin Silvestri.
 Heidi Durbeck, MPH '06, has received the 2006 Association of Schools of Public Health/Health Resources and Services Administration Council on Linkages Student Award for Excellence in Public Health Practice. She was selected by a national review committee, largely due to her demonstration of the scholarship of public health practice while overseeing a Camp Health Aide Program with Migrant Health Promotion. Associate Dean for Practice Matthew Boulton (at left in photo) and Dean Kenneth Warner presented the award to Durbeck at UM SPH in May. Dawn Sievert, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology, was UM SPH's other student nominee for this award; she received honorable mention as one of the top five candidates. 
Noreen M. Clark and Amy Friedman, director and deputy director of UM SPH-based Allies Against Asthma, were guest editors for an April 2006 supplement to the journal Health Promotion Practice. Entitled "Community Coalitions and Control of Chronic Disease: The Allies Against Asthma Approach," the supplement includes 14 articles that describe the logic and processes of coalition work. They assess accomplishments and draw lessons from the Allies coalitions' efforts to form and maintain coalitions and implement their action strategies. More information.
MaryFran Sowers, Professor of Epidemiology and John G. Searle Professor of Public Health, has received a 2006 Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Iowa College of Public Health. She was cited in the university's news release for her expertise and international reputation in the fields of bone health and biomarkers and for her work with the National Arthritis Foundation and the Federal Trade Commission.
Naima Wong of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education has been selected as one of four 2006 Association of Schools of Public Health/CDC Prevention Research Center Fellows. The fellowship unites minority doctoral students with leading public health researchers across the country. Wong will work with the Prevention Research Center of Michigan on a project entitled “Uplifting Youth Voice and Participation: Adolescent Perspectives on Solutions to Violence and Evaluation of a Youth-Driven Advocacy Forum."
 Catherine McLaughlin, professor of Health Management and Policy and director of the Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, has been appointed to the Board of Trustees for the American
Hospital Association's Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET). She will start
serving a three-year term in July, 2006. The start of her term coincides with the
annual Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit in San Francisco where Gail Warden, her
colleague in HMP and a former HRET board member, is receiving the TRUST award.
Epidemiology Ph.D. student Alexis Handal has won the student prize paper from the Congress of Epidemiology for her research on "Maternal Occupational Exposure to Pesticides during Pregnancy and Neurobehavioral Development in Ecuadorian Infants and Children" in a flower-growing region of Ecuador. The award will be presented at the Congress of Epidemiology conference in Seattle in late June.
EHS student Sanjeeva Wijeyesakere and faculty mentor Rudy J. Richardson were honored recently at the annual national meeting of the Society of Toxicology. In the poster presentation competion, Wijeyesakere received second place among predoctoral students in neurotoxicology for "Modeling the Patatin Domain of Neuropathy Target Esterase."
 
Professors Cleo Caldwell of Health Behavior and Health Education and Sioban Harlow of Epidemiology are recipients of this year's Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Awards, a major University of Michigan award established in 1996 in honor of former Dean of the School of Social Work Harold R. Johnson. It recognizes UM faculty who have exhibited outstanding leadership in the area of cultural diversity. Professors Caldwell and Harlow will be honored at a dinner recognizing this year's awardees in May.
The recently published Handbook of Urban Health, co-edited by new UM SPH Associate Professor of Epidemiology Sandro Galea, was reviewed in the October 26, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and in the April 20, 2006, New England Journal of Medicine (PDF).
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Health Sciences Steven Levine is the recipient of this year's Donald Cummings Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and he will deliver the Cummings Memorial Lecture at the late-March AIHA conference in Chicago. This award was established in 1943 and is given for outstanding contributions to the knowledge and practice of the profession of industrial hygiene.
Winter 2006
 UM SPH's John Griffith, the Andrew Pattullo Collegiate Professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy, and co-author Kenneth White are winners of the Hayhow Award for 2005 from the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) for their article "The Revolution in Hospital Management," which appeared in the May/June 2005 Journal of Healthcare Management. ACHE grants the Edgar C. Hayhow Award annually to the author(s) of an article judged the best from among those published in the Journal of Healthcare Management, ACHE's official journal. The award will be presented on March 28 at the ACHE's 49th Congress in Chicago. Griffith has received the Hayhow award an unprecedented three times, previously in 2003 and 1989. More info:
Public Health Library and Informatics Director Nancy Allee has been approved for membership in the Academy of Health Information Professionals at the Distinguished Member level. The title "denotes the highest standards of professional competency and achievement in the field of health care information."
 Derek Griffith has been named an inaugural 2006-2007 faculty fellow at the new National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID). Griffith has an appointment in UM SPH's Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and serves as both the associate director of evaluation for the Prevention Research Center of Michigan and the assistant director for research and research training at the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH) at UM SPH. He will use the NCID funding to expand CRECH training activities focused on making graduates more effective public health scientists and practitioners in multiethnic, multicultural communities.
 The poster presented by EHS assistant professor Sri Kannan and colleagues Nelda Mercer, Janice Bach, and Jennifer Dickinson at the National Birth Defects Prevention Network annual meeting was awarded a blue ribbon by judges. It was entitled " Survey of Dietetic and Nursing Professionals in Michigan Reveals a need for Continuing Education on the Role of Folic Acid in Preventing Neural Tube Defects". The project focuses on neural tube defects prevention in high risk counties in Michigan and is a collaborative effort between MDCH and SPH. Kannan has also provided shared leadership as co-chair of Michigan's Birth Defects Prevention & Monitoring Network, with MDCH colleagues.
The University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School has announced that four School of Public Health students will receive 2006-07 Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships: Justin Cohen and Sarah Talarico in the Department of Epidemiology, Weihua Guan in Biostatistics, and Sanjeeva Wijeyesakere in Environmental Health Sciences. This prestigious award carries a stipend of $25,200.
Additionally, Carla Talarico in the Department of Epidemiology will receive the Margaret Ayers Host Award from Rackham Graduate School. This $5,000 award is given each year to a woman doctoral candidate at UM.
 The spring 2005 issue of the School of Public Health magazine Findings, produced by the SPH Office of Communications, has received an ADDY award. Presented by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY awards recognize and reward creative excellence. Don Hammond who designed the magazine and cover for Savitski Design, and Leslie Stainton is the editor. This is the second ADDY award received by the SPH Office of Communications. The first was in 2004 for the brochure 'The Future of Public Health.'
 Gail Warden, Adjunct Professor in Health Management & Policy and President and CEO-Emeritus of the Henry Ford Health System, will be presented with a Distinguished Warrior Award from the Detroit Urban League in March. The award is conferred upon individuals 65 years and older who have fought for the progress of minority people through involvement in the areas of civil and human rights. Awardees are selected by a committee of past honorees and the Urban League Board.
George Kaplan, Thomas Francis Collegiate Professor of Public Health and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health and the Health and Society Scholars Program, has been selected by the University of Texas School of Public Health as this year's recipient of the John P. McGovern Award. This award and accompanying lecture series recognize distinguished researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the development, implementation and evaluation of health promotion programs. Dr. Kaplan will deliver a presentation in Houston in April when he receives the award.
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