University Times

Vice Provost and Dean of Students Kathy W. Humphrey has been selected to participate in the International Women’s Forum (IWF) Leadership Foundation 2010-11 fellows program Oct. 9-16 in Montreal.

The program includes orientation and training prior to the IWF 2010 world leadership conference, “Water, Wealth and Power.”

Humphrey is among 32 women from 13 countries chosen for IWF’s training program.

IWF’s mission is the advancement of women’s leadership across careers, cultures and continents by connecting the world’s pre-eminent women of significant and diverse achievement.

The organization noted in its letter to Humphrey: “Your selection for the fellows program distinguishes you as a woman with enormous talent, promise and potential. You were chosen from a highly competitive pool of candidates from around the world and as a class, you represent great diversity.”

Daniel Patterson, a faculty member in emergency medicine at the School of Medicine, has been appointed to the National Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council.

Patterson is an expert on teamwork and team communication in emergency care.

Council members will provide advice to the U.S. Department of Transportation and its federal partners on EMS issues, including safety culture, recruitment and retention of EMS personnel, quality assurance, federal grants for emergency services and preparation for multi-casualty incidents.

Patterson also is director of research for the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania, a research and educational consortium that is part of UPMC.

Chemistry department faculty members Kay Brummond and Peter Wipf have been elected to the 2010 class of fellows of the American Chemical Society, bringing the number of ACS fellows in the department to four. Dennis Curran and Kenneth Jordan were part of last year’s inaugural class of fellows.

Brummond’s research focuses on synthesis of biologically relevant targets, organometallic chemistry applied to synthesis and solid-phase synthesis.

Wipf, University Professor of Chemistry, focuses on total synthesis of natural products; organometallic and heterocyclic chemistry, and combinatorial synthesis.

The designation of fellow is conferred on those who have distinguished themselves in multiple areas, including the promotion of science, the profession and service to the ACS.

Robert Hill, vice chancellor for Public Affairs, was named Communicator of the Year by the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation. The award, one of PBMF’s annual Robert L. Vann Awards, is given to an individual or organization whose positive actions help disseminate messages of empowerment, community hope and strength.

In its letter notifying Hill of his award, PBMF wrote that “the federation has long observed and admired your role as Pitt’s chief spokesperson, your founding of the Blue, Gold and Black program, your continued recognition of African Americans connected to the University of Pittsburgh, your support of deserving and in-need black students at Pitt and the guidance and support you provide numerous community organizations, including poetry societies and social service nonprofits.”

Pitt’s Office of Public Affairs won five additional Vann awards.

In the Website Commentary category, Hill and Pitt history faculty member Laurence Glasco won first place for their commentary titled “Sex Exploitation and Slavery.” The piece was published on a University Library System-produced web site that takes viewers through a virtual tour of the award-winning Pitt-produced exhibition, “Free at Last? Slavery in Pittsburgh in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” which was on display during the 2008-09 academic year at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

In the Magazine Features category, Pitt magazine senior editor Ervin Dyer won first place for his article titled “August Wilson’s Class Act.”

In the Newspaper Opinion/Editorials category, Hill’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece “Pounding on the Doors of Opportunity” won second place.

In the Print Feature Photography category, Tom Altany’s photography for “Abundant Life” in Pitt magazine received second place.

In the Newspaper Series category, Pitt Chronicle’s 2009 Black History Month profiles won third place. They were written by Sharon S. Blake, Amanda Leff Ritchie, Anthony M. Moore and Patricia Lomando White.

The Vann awards celebrate outstanding achievements in journalism related to the coverage of the African-American community of western Pennsylvania.

Several faculty members at the Katz Graduate School of Business were honored by the school with Excellence in Research Awards: Mei Feng, Jeff Inman, Albert Wesley Frey, Chris Kemerer, Cait Poynor Lamberton, Carrie Leana and Chad Zutter. This award is presented to faculty who had two acceptances in “A” journals in the previous calendar year.

In addition to his faculty appointment, Inman also is associate dean for research and faculty at the Katz school.

Kemerer also is David M. Roderick Professor of Information Systems and Professor of Business Administration.

Leana is George H. Love Professor of Organizations and Management and director of the Center for Health and Care Work.

Linda Hartman, reference librarian at the Health Sciences Library System, has been named a distinguished member of the Medical Library Association’s Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Hartman, HSLS liaison to the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, oversees information services students and is a staff member of the Quality of Life Technology Center, a joint program of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon.

Mary Margaret Kerr, a faculty member in the School of Education and one of the co-founders of Pitt’s state-funded Services for Teens at Risk suicide prevention center, has been chosen as the Borough of Whitehall’s Citizen of the Year.

Kerr has worked in urban school districts throughout her academic career. Her focus has been the improvement of services for students with emotional and behavioral problems.

Linda Frank, a faculty member in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Graduate School of Public Health, will be inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing on Nov. 13.

Frank, who won a 2010 Chancellor’s Distinguished Public Service Award, is the principal investigator for the Pennsylvania/MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center (AETC), which provides HIV/AIDS-related training to health professionals in Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

She also is director of the master of public health program in community and behavioral interventions for infectious diseases.

Linda Demoise, the academic support coordinator for Investing Now, an engineering tutoring program for high school and college students in the Swanson School of Engineering, has been awarded the UPMC Dignity and Respect Champion Award.

The honor recognizes people who are connected to their communities, live by a belief in dignity and respect and encourage an environment of inclusion.

Richard Schulz, professor of psychiatry and director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research, received the 2010 Harold Yuker Award for Research Excellence by Division 22-Rehabilitation Psychology of the American Psychological Association for most highly rated paper published in rehabilitation psychology.

Margo B. Holm, professor and director of post-professional education in the Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant.

Holm will do research and lecture at the University of  Jordan during the fall semester. She will assist in developing a rehabilitation science educational and research program and consult with the occupational therapy faculty and faculty of the health sciences on curriculum development.

The School of Dental Medicine has announced the following faculty honors:

• Gayle Ball, a faculty member in the Department of Periodontics/Preventive Dentistry, was selected as one of the New Pittsburgh Courier’s 50 Women of Excellence. The award recognizes some of Pittsburgh’s most successful and influential African-American women for their commitment to professional excellence, as well as diversity and inclusion.

• Robert Weyant, associate dean of public health and outreach and chair of the Department of Dental Public Health/Information Management, was appointed to an Institute of Medicine committee charged with recommending ways to improve access to dental care.

The project is sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Brent Malin, a faculty member in the Department of Communication, has been awarded the 2010 Walter Benjamin Award for outstanding article in media ecology from the Media Ecology Association.

His essay, “Mediating Emotion: Technology, Social Science and Emotion in the Payne Fund Motion Picture Studies,” was published last year in Technology & Culture.

Peter Gianaros, a faculty member in psychiatry and in psychology, received the 2010 APA Distinguished Early Career Scientific Contribution to Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association.

The award was in recognition of his work conceptualizing and quantifying stress-related cardiovascular and autonomic function, relating stress patterns to biomarkers of risk for cardiovascular disease and characterizing the brain systems that regulate and are affected by peripheral stress physiology.

Building on animal models, Gianaros has demonstrated the influence of perceived stress and low socioeconomic status on human brain morphology.

The Department of Pathology announced several faculty honors and recognition.

• Jeffrey A. Kant, director of the Division of Molecular Diagnostics, has begun terms as vice chair of the College of American Pathologists’ Council on Scientific Affairs and as a member of the Veterans Administration genetic program advisory committee.

Kant recently has been asked to serve on the external advisory board for Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Cancer Center Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative.

• George K. Michalopoulos, chair of the department, was selected for the Wisconsin Distinguished Resident Alumni Award for 2011. He was also invited to join the National Institutes of Health College of the Center for Scientific Review for a two-year period.

• Steven Swerdlow, director of the Division of Hematopathology, has been elected as a trustee of the American Board of Pathology, effective Jan. 1, 2011.

• Theresa Humpe, the lead technologist in the department’s atypical case reports program, was awarded the 2010 Inaugural UPMC Sustainable Innovation Initiative Award in the process category for advocating the placement of solar panels in all new construction within the UPMC system.

Robert Moore, Love Family Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience in the School of Medicine, has received the 2010 Peter C. Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine from the Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, in recognition of his lifetime contributions to sleep medicine. He currently is a visiting professor of medicine at Harvard.

William Klunk, co-director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, has received the 2010 McEllroy Award from the Pitt Medical Alumni Association. The award goes to an outstanding non-alumnus who undertook residency training at Pitt.

Orthopaedic surgery’s Christopher Harner, Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania Professor and medical director of UPMC Center for Sports Medicine, has been elected secretary of the Herodocus Society, an international orthopaedic sports medicine society. Following his term as secretary he will become vice president and then president.

Constance Chu, vice chair of translational research and Albert B. Ferguson Jr. Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery, was inducted into the Herodocus Society.

Harner also was elected second vice president and James Bradley was elected secretary of the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine (AOSSM). In addition to his Pitt faculty appointment, Bradley is head team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chu was appointed chair of the AOSSM research committee.

Mark Lovell, a faculty member in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and founding director of the UPMC Sports Medicine concussion program, recently received an award for years of excellence in concussion research at the national Concussion Summit.

He also  received USA Hockey Excellence in Safety Award at USA Hockey’s annual convention.

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The People of the Times column features recent news on faculty and staff, including awards and other honors, accomplishments and administrative appointments.

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