Surinder Batra, Ph.D., professor and chairman of biochemistry and molecular biology, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Missouri Health System’s Health Science Research Day on Nov. 14 and the 75th Annual Congress of the Japan Surgical Association on Nov. 22. Dr. Batra was named UNMC’s seventh Scientist Laureate in 2012.
Krupa Savalia, a M.D./Ph.D. student working in the laboratory of Matthew Zimmerman, Ph.D., cellular & integrative physiology, received several honors at the annual meeting of the International Society for Hypertension (ISH) in New Orleans. Savalia’s oral presentation was awarded the Best Trainee Oral Presentation Award among the 35 talks given by Ph.D. students, post-docs, M.D.s, and junior faculty members. In addition, she was named "New Investigator of the Month" for October and received the ISH’s Jane Reckelhoff Award worth $2,500.
Several other UNMC faculty and students also won awards at the ISH’s annual meeting. Karla Vincent Haack, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Irving Zucker, Ph.D., cellular & integrative physiology, won the award for Best Trainee Poster. Hanjun Wang, M.D., won a New Investigator Award. A former UNMC graduate student, Liang Xiao, Ph.D., now a post-doctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University, won the award for Best Trainee Abstract. Also participating from UNMC were Erika Boesen, Ph.D., Pamela Carmines, Ph.D., Alicia Schiller and Urmi Basu.
Six family medicine physicians who were part of the UNMC delegation that went to China last month were awarded courtesy professorships at Tongji University in Shanghai. The recipients of the courtesy professorships were (seen in photo at right, from left to right): Jeff Harrison, M.D., Paul Paulman, M.D., Audrey Paulman, M.D., Kim Jarzynka, M.D., Nate Falk, M.D., and Kent Zhao, M.D. "This is indicative of how grateful Tongji University is for all UNMC's efforts in trying to implement the family medicine model in China," said Mike Sitorius, M.D., professor and chairman of the UNMC Department of Family Medicine. "I'm delighted for our group to receive this outstanding recognition."
Two School of Allied Health Professions faculty have recently been named president-elect of their respective national organizations. Marcia Hess Smith, program director of nuclear medicine technology education, is president-elect for the board of directors of the Nuclear Medicine Technologist Certification Board, her profession’s national certification body. Stephane VanderMeulen, assistant professor of physician assistant education, was elected president-elect of the Physician Assistant Education Association at PAEA’s annual meetings in Memphis, Tenn. PAEA is the only national organization representing physician assistant education in the United States. She will serve a year as president-elect, then a one-year term as president, and one as past-president.
UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., received the 2013 Tongji University Medical and Life Sciences Achievement Award at the Fourth Annual Shanghai Sino-US Family Medicine Symposium & Faculty Training Session. UNMC and Tongji University are partners in the Shanghai-U.S. Health Science Initiative (SSUHSI), a collaborative health science partnership that involves educational, clinical and research components.
Vipul Shukla, a Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Runqing Lu, Ph.D., genetics, cell biology and anatomy, recently was first author on a published article in Blood, a major journal. Additionally, the article was highlighted in the same journal by the editors in a “comments” section where very well-known, leading experts in the field discussed Shukla’s insights.
Ward Chambers, M.D., executive director of international health and medical education at UNMC, was honored last month with a 2013 Faculty-Alumni Award from the alumni association of his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Missouri. In addition to Dr. Chambers’ many achievements, including serving as a mentor to underprivileged teenagers, the university noted that Dr. Chambers helped initiate a program at Missouri, the Chambers Diversity Leadership Academy, to mentor engineering students. He also has funded two minority engineering scholarships at the university.
Sheila Sternberg Ellis, M.D., vice chair of clinical affairs in the UNMC Department of Anesthesiology, received the College of Medicine Alumni Association Early Career Achievement Award.
Richard Hranac, M.D., a private practice physician in Kearney, received the College of Medicine Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award.