Accolades

University of Pittsburgh faculty members Prashant N. Kumta and José-Alain Sahel have been elected Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors.

Chancellor Joan Gabel recognized the accomplishments of both at the Jan. 18 Senate Council meeting. “They are the 13th and 14th Pitt faculty named NAI fellows since 2015, which is great,” she said.

Kumta is a pioneer in an array of research fields, including advanced nanostructured materials for energy storage and conversion, as well as functional nano-scale materials systems for hard and soft tissue engineering.

He is distinguished professor of bioengineering and the Edward R. Weidlein endowed chair professor in bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering, with secondary appointments in Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and an appointment in School of Dental Medicine's Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences.

Sahel, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the School of Medicine and endowed chair of the Eye and Ear Foundation, is a global trailblazer in vision restoration research.

Sahel is a leader in vision restoration techniques. He has developed several interventions—including stem cell implantation, gene therapy, innovative pharmacologic approaches and the artificial retina—for retinitis pigmentosa, other retinal dystrophies, age-related macular degeneration and other vision impairments that currently are untreatable.

He has pioneered optogenetic vision restoration, a technique in which cells in the retina are genetically modified to express light-sensitive proteins to help patients who are blind or visually impaired.

He is also a coinventor on more than 40 patents, several of which have led to start-up companies. He also was recently appointed to French President Emmanuel Macron’s new Presidential Council for Science, and he’s been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2007.

“He’s a global leader in vision restoration, literally giving sight back to the blind,” Gabel said. “It’s an incredible body of work that he's doing.”

The NAI Fellows program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. 

Amy Sherman is stepping into the role of acquisitions editor at the University of Pittsburgh Press, after 10 years at Pitt Press.

She started as an editorial assistant in acquisitions before advancing to her most recent role as managing editor in 2018. As managing editor, she has worked closely with authors on a range of books across our lists.

Sherman’s acquiring efforts will expand the Press’s longstanding environmental history list. She also will focus on food studies and books of regional interest. 

“Amy will play a key role in expanding, widening, and deepening our offerings in these important subject areas,” Pitt Press Director Peter Kracht said,  This marks an influential moment in our development as a press.” 

Anthony Grace, a distinguished professor of neuroscience and professor of psychology and psychiatry, received a $634,831 grant as a continuation of his study, “Gating of Information Flow Within the Nucleus Accumbens.”

The project — which focuses on adolescent stress as a risk factor for major mental disorders, particularly the differences between male and females — started in 1997. Using rats, Grace and his colleagues found males are more susceptible to prepubertal stress, leading to an adult state resembling schizophrenia; females on the other hand are resilient to prepubertal stress but susceptible to postpubertal stress, leading to adult affective disorders.

Grace’s other ongoing studies into the neurobiology of schizophrenia involve researching the interaction of the prefrontal cortex and antipsychotic drugs with subcortical dopamine systems and examining the impact of developmental disruption on limbic system function as a model for the pathophysiological changes underlying schizophrenia in humans.

Five faculty from five schools across the Pitt campus were chosen to participate in the 2024 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Academic Leaders Network program.

The program, which was launched in 2018, provides an opportunity for faculty at ACC institutions strengthen their leadership skills, build networks, deepen their understanding of higher education administration and broaden their awareness of needs and challenges in higher ed.

Up to five participants are selected from each institution. Deans and campus presidents can nominate department or division chairs, associate deans, associate vice provosts and faculty in similar roles for consideration. Nominations are solicited in late spring.

Here is this year’s cohort:

• Kevin M. Conley, associate professor and chair of the Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition, and associate dean for undergraduate studies at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
• Kyaien O. Conner, professor and Donald M. Henderson Endowed Chair; director of the Center on Race and Social Problems; and associate dean for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in Pitt’s School of Social Work
• Erica Owen, associate professor and associate dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
• Vanitha Swaminathan, Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing and associate dean of strategic initiatives at Pitt’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business
• David A. Vorp, John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering and senior associate dean for research and facilities in the Swanson School of Engineering, with secondary appointments in the departments of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science as well as Cardiothoracic Surgery and Surgery in the School of Medicine and Pitt’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute

PItt's schools of the health sciences appointed Carl Lawson as the new associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity and inclusion, effective Feb. 5. In this capacity, Lawson will be responsible for leading efforts to foster an inclusive environment for students, trainees, staff and faculty of all races, ethnicities, genders and religions across Pitt’s six health sciences schools.

Lawson joins Pitt from Rosalind Franklin University (RFU) of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, where he served as director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Chicago Medical School and director of interprofessional global health for RFU. At the medical school, he designed initiatives to advance faculty and students from groups underrepresented in medicine and worked to increase knowledge of diversity and equity issues in academic medicine.

As a professor, Lawson has taught courses in issues such as global health, health disparities, health care inequities, LGBTQ+ patient care and structural racism in medicine. He also served as RFU’s global health director, a role in which he forged relationships with medical schools, hospitals and other organizations based outside the U.S.

A proud veteran, Lawson served as a commissioned officer with the U.S. Public Health Service while at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Center for Global Health. In this role, he managed international infectious disease program operations for CDC satellite offices in multiple countries, worked as the administrator for a global quarantine reporting system, and contributed to public health emergency response efforts. He also volunteered with the U.S. Peace Corps in Gambia.

Lawson earned his Master of Public Health from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, a Master of Arts from the University of Kent Brussels School of International Studies, and his PhD in peace and conflict studies from the United Nations’ University for Peace. He also recently completed the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Healthcare Executive Diversity and Inclusion Certificate, an intensive academic program aimed at training leaders to drive diversity as a core component of excellence in health care.

Tawanda Stamps, Pitt's director of contract administration and procurement, is included in City & State PA’s Impact 75 list. Each year, the magazine highlights citizens who have made steps toward a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous Pennsylvania.

Stamps (CGS ’12, GSPIA ’16G) has 20-plus years of service in contract administration and procurement of construction and related services, joining Pitt in 2000 as a contract administrator in the Office of Facilities Management. Additionally, she leads the University’s Mentor-Protégé Program, which encourages larger construction firms to develop mentor relationships with minority businesses in the Pittsburgh region. To participate in the program, both mentor and protégé teams are required to commit to a robust construction management training program that includes training sessions, networking and on-the-job development opportunities.

“Tawanda’s impact on the university and community are deserving of this honor and recognition,” said Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management Scott Bernotas. “In her role as director of contract administration and procurement, she has consistently incorporated an unwavering commitment to the ideals of diversity and inclusion into the University’s construction program. Those efforts have translated into tremendous and tangible gains for the disadvantaged contractors in Pitt’s neighboring community with two consecutive years of record-setting local minority and women spend.”

Gurudev Dutt, associate professor in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, is among 11 physics researchers whose innovative projects were selected for funding by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

Dutt and his colleagues will magnetically levitate diamond crystals to create and measure macroscopic quantum superpositions and explore the interface between quantum physics and gravity. Selected from hundreds of proposals, other projects include hunting for dark matter and building ultraprecise atomic clocks. The ambitious “tabletop” experiments all aim at expanding the frontiers of fundamental physics while still fitting into a typical room-sized university physics research lab.

Each of the projects will receive funding for up to five years, with the four foundations together pledging more than $30 million for all the undertakings.

Assistant Professor Marco Capogrosso has received the Society for Neuroscience’s Young Investigator Award, a first for a Pitt faculty member. The award recognizes outstanding achievements and contributions by young neuroscientists who lead independent research groups.

As director of Pitt’s Spinal Cord Stimulation Laboratory, Capogrosso studies the interactions between electrical stimulation and the dynamics of neural circuits. He is interested in the use and development of computational models to support the design of effective neurotechnologies, with a particular focus on the restoration of sensory and motor function after neural damage or disease.

He led a first-in-human clinical trial for electrical stimulation in the upper spinal cord to treat patients with upper-body paralysis caused by stroke. The study found that stimulating the spinal cord instantly improves arm and hand mobility; and, after a few weeks of use, some of these improvements endure when the stimulation is switched off, indicating exciting avenues for the future of stroke therapies.

“This award is an honor and a great recognition of translational research in neuroscience,” Capogrosso said. “We’re showing that we can change people’s lives using science.”

Previous awardees include numerous distinguished neuroscientists, including Nobel Prize winner Ardem Patapoutian.

Kay Brummond, a professor of chemistry in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, reflected on the impact of the publication Organic Syntheses in an editorial that was co-published by nine chemistry journals.

Brummond currently serves on the board of directors for Organic Syntheses, a publication of reliable methods for the preparation of organic compounds that has served the organic chemistry community for more than 100 years. At the Fall 2023 National ACS Meeting in San Francisco, Brummond presented on the value of the journal’s website — which sees 50,000 visitors per month — and serving as a model for transparency by providing open access to several resources, including a rich database of experimental procedures for important synthetic transformations.

The editorial, co-authored by Margaret Faul of Amgen Inc., highlights these topics as well as how Organic Syntheses will adapt and evolve to meet the changing needs of chemists.