Elaine J. Abrams, MD, Epidemiology, was named the 2023 Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators Educational Mentor of the Year in recognition of her transformative engagement in the lives of students, trainees, clinicians, and scholars at Columbia and throughout the nation. Dr. Abrams was recognized for this distinction at the annual Thomas Q. Morris Symposium Lecture on May 1, 2023.
Christian Gloria, associate professor of sociomedical sciences, was elected to the Board of Directors of the New York State Public Health Association (NYSPHA), the affiliate of APHA, and serves as a statewide organization for members from all disciplines in the public health spectrum. It advocates for policies at the national, state and regional levels that support equity in health status and an end to health disparities for all.
Denise Kandel, PhD, professor emerita of Sociomedical Sciences (in Psychiatry), and the Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry, was given the Joseph Zubin Award by the American Psychopathological Association on March 4. The Joseph Zubin award is given to an individual who has played a fundamental role in psychopathology research, generally in a field related to the meeting topic. It honors a person who has contributed to the knowledge base and has stimulated others. The recipient need not necessarily be an active investigator but rather an elder statesman whose contributions are worthy of recognition. She also was honored with the Mood Disorder Award from the American College of Psychiatrists at its annual meeting.
Myrna Weissman, PhD, Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor of Epidemiology, was honored with the Mood Disorder Award from the American College of Psychiatrists at its annual meeting in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 26. Weissman's research includes the study of the transmission of depression across generations, the detection of biomarkers of transmission and treatment response, and the implementation of psychotherapy in low-income countries and populations.
Stephanie Grilo, PhD, and Goleen Samari, PhD, MPH, assistant professors, Population and Family Health, have been selected for Pedagogy in Health Promotion’s 2022 Best Paper of the Year Award for their paper about MOSAIC, An Anti-Racism Public Health Graduate Program: Mentoring of Students and Igniting Community
Rachel Shelton, associate professor of sociomedical sciences, was appointed Associate Editor for the Annual Review of Public Health journal, for the period 2023-2027. She also was invited to be a member of the Latino Research Institute Scientific Advisory Panel.
A recent study on vaping and teens by senior author Katherine Keyes, PhD, and lead author Noah Kreski in Epidemiology was the top 2022 pulmonary news story on the website Healio.
Sen Pei, PhD, assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, is the recipient of a $50,000 pilot grant from Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study zoonotic threats. Learn more.
A study led by Columbia Mailman School researchers Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry, and Melanie Wall, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics in Psychiatry, received the 2023 European Psychiatric Association’s Research Prize for the best scientific paper of the year.
2022
Jennifer Hirsch, PhD, professor of Sociomedical Sciences, is the co-author of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus. Vogue Magazine named Sexual Citizens to the Essential Queer Reading list in the category of contemporary gender and sexual politics.
Quarraisha Abdool Karim, PhD, professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and a world-leading AIDS researcher from South Africa, has been elected to serve as the seventh President of The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries (UNESCO-TWAS). Learn more.
Nour Makarem, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology is the winner of the American Heart Association Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Early Career Investigator Award. She was presented with the award at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions held in Chicago on November 5.
Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH, Dean, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Director, Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, was named to the list of 2022 Power Players in Health Care by Politics NY for her leadership as Dean and dedication to the science of healthy aging and prevention of frailty, disability, and cardiovascular disease. Read her full entry here.
A Columbia Mailman School report, “The Prescription of Trust Pharmacists Transforming Patient Care,” led by health policy and management assistant professor John McHugh and co-authored with Express Scripts® Pharmacy won the PRNews platinum award for external publication campaign. It was presented at an awards ceremony on October 12. Learn more.
Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, founder and global director of ICAP at Columbia Mailman School will receive the American Public Health Association (APHA) Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health for her groundbreaking work in global HIV research, treatment, and care. Learn more.
The Government of Japan has awarded the Fourth Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research to Salim S. Abdool Karim, CAPRISA Professor for Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and director, Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and to Quarraisha Abdool Karim, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School, associate scientific director of CAPRISA. Salim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim are world-renowned African scientists who have had a marked impact on HIV prevention and treatment and the COVID-19 response globally, and especially in Africa. Learn more.
Jennifer Hirsch, PhD, professor of Sociomedical Sciences, co-authored Sexual Citizens, which was selected by the New York Public Library for a special reading list to honor the 50th Anniversary of the passing of Titile IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, is about campus sexual assault and how to address it had been named to NPR’s List of Best Books of 2020.
Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, Epidemiology and Medicine, was appointed to the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director, which provides advice on matters pertinent to National Institutes of Health missions responsibilities in the conduct and support of biomedical research, medical science, and biomedical communications.
Diana Hernandez, PhD, associate professor of Sociomedical Sciences, is one of the winners of the Inaugural 40 under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award presented by Boston Congress of Public Health (BCPH). The cohort represents the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, scientists, activists, intellectual provocateurs, authors, and directors who inspire and catalyze us all to a more just and equitable world. Learn more.
Merlin Chowkwanyun, PhD, Donald Gemson Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, was selected by the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS) Board and Membership as the 2022 recipient of the Milbank Quarterly Early Career Award in Population Health. The award recognizes significant contributions to population health science by an individual who has received the PhD, MD, or a comparable graduate degree no more than ten years before the year of the award. Learn more.
Mara Minguez, MD, MSc, assistant professor of Population and Family Health and Pediatrics, was selected as a 2022 National Hispanic Medical Association Leadership Fellow for her outstanding accomplishments and proven dedication to the Hispanic community. Learn more.
Melissa DuPont, PhD, assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Epidemiology, will serve as a grant application reviewer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) upcoming Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers (RRTC): Equity Center in the Employment Domain grant competition.
Zhezhen Jin, PhD, professor of Biostatistics, has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics for demonstrating distinction in research in statistics and leadership that has influenced the profession. His contributions have been ground-breaking in important areas of statistics and biostatistics, including survival analysis, resampling methods, and statistical computing.
Merlin Chowkwanyun, PhD, Donald Gemson Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and principal investigator of the Toxic Docs project (www.toxicdocs.org), received a new three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to expand the collection of documents in the project, the world’s largest database of material on toxic substances for academic researchers, environmental health scientists, journalists, and policy analysts. The $350,000 grant for this new iteration will go towards leveraging recent innovations that allow for even larger-scale, mass digitization of documents, and a companion site, Toxic Tools (www.toxicdocs.tools), for users to have new ways of probing the material beyond a full-text search. It also includes a new Freedom of Information Act wing that will use responses from public records requests.
Chowkwanyun was also selected as one of the 2022-2023 recipients for the Center for Environmental Health and Justice in Northern Manhattan (CEHJNM)'s Career Development Award for his ongoing research.
Alwyn Cohall, MD, professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Population and Family Health, was named 2022-2023 Vanneck-Bailey Scholar. The award is given annually to support a Columbia Medical Center faculty member to develop educational programs that will “ensure that its students are among the finest physicians entering the profession, skilled in the knowledge and practice of medicine and modeling compassionate, humanistic care to all patients.” With the support of the Vanneck-Bailey Scholar Award, Dr. Cohall proposes “to support content creation, service-learning activities, and exposure to individuals with lived experience in the carceral system as means of building a curriculum responsive to recommendations set forth by the AAMC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies which broadly call for the expansion of learning opportunities addressing health care inequities arising from systemic racism and personal bias.”
Nour Makarem, PhD, assistant professor of Epidemiology received the Trudy Bush Award for Cardiovascular Disease Research in Women’s Health, to be presented during the EPI | Lifestyle 2022 Scientific Sessions in Chicago. Makarem was recognized at the Annual Joint Council Dinner on Thursday, March 3. The award is named for Trudy Bush, PhD, MHS, who was also a former faculty member at Columbia Public Health, to honor her outstanding leadership in the field of women’s health and contributions to cardiovascular science.
Quarraisha Abdool Karim, PhD, professor of Epidemiology, and Salim Abdool Karim, PhD, MBBCH, DSc, professor of Global Health, were awarded the VinFuture Special Prize for Innovators from Developing Countries for their groundbreaking research on HIV prevention in South Africa. The $500,000 prize recognizes the work of scientists in the developing world. Read more
Gary Miller, PhD, professor of Environmental Health Sciences, was named an AAAS Fellow, one of 5 faculty from Columbia. American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world's largest scientific society. Miller is being recognized for his work in pharmacology, toxicology, and neuroscience, particularly in understanding neurotransmitter storage, Parkinson’s Disease, and how non-genetic factors influence health. He is responsible for popularizing the idea of the exposome—how things like living conditions, diet, pollution, and other environmental factors trigger changes in the body that can lead to disease and shorter lifespans.
