President’s Excellence Award winner: Dejun Su, PhD

Dejun Su, PhD, has studied the social determinants of health for decades, yet continues to see himself evolve as a researcher.  

Over the years, Dr. Su, associate professor at the UNMC Department of Health Promotion in the College of Public Health, grew increasingly determined to see his research create real-world impact.  

“I have to confess that early in my career, I tended to enjoy doing research in an office setting, running analysis and assessing what the numbers are telling us to form a coherent and compelling story,” said Dr. Su, who led the UNMC Center for Reducing Health Disparities from 2012 to 2022. “The older I become, I tend to enjoy the impact of those findings and figuring out how we can convert this into action.” 

In April, in honor of his success in engaging community members in health disparities research, Dr. Su received the Innovation, Development and Engagement Award (IDEA) from University of Nebraska System President Ted Carter. The President’s Excellence Award recognizes Dr. Su for achievements including overseeing the rapid growth of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities, securing critical grants and uplifting Nebraska’s community health workforce.  

“Those accomplishments cannot happen without a solid team,” he said. “This award goes far beyond me.” 

Dr. Su joined UNMC in 2012 following his time as director of the South Texas Border Health Disparities Center at the University of Texas-Pan American. It was in that role, in which he researched disparities in health care access on Texas-Mexico border, that his longtime academic interest in lifespan health and longevity became tied to social justice. 

“Working in south Texas gave me more ideas of what I could do to address severe and persistent disparities,” he said. 

Since then, Dr. Su has contributed to the med center at many levels. Under his leadership, the Center for Reducing Health Disparities doubled its extramural funding support and increased its scholarly publications six-fold. In 2020, he led the efforts for the College of Public Health to be the nation’s only public health school to receive the prestigious Harrison C. Spencer Award for Outstanding Community Service. In a clinical partnership with Nebraska Medicine, he led program evaluation and payment model development efforts for a major telemedicine project serving high-risk diabetic patients. 

Today, Dr. Su is working to support the community health workers of Nebraska. He recently helped secure a $3 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to train 240 community health workers and promote their integration into healthcare delivery across the state. 

The training program follows previous research by Dr. Su’s team, which found that community health workers desire more formal certification processes and investments.  

“If research findings only sit in my office, or in my computer, their impact would be really limited,” Dr. Su said. “But when we disseminate them — with the media or through publications or by directly sharing them with community leaders — our findings can lead to meaningful interventions.”