University Times

Ronald LaPorte, professor of epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health, recently was awarded the Abraham Lilienfeld award from the American Public Health Association for outstanding lifetime achievements in public health education.

The award was presented to him in recognition of the Supercourse (www.pitt.edu/~super1), an on-line library of lectures that LaPorte founded and developed.

Supercourse is designed to provide an overview of epidemiology on the Internet for medical and health related students and professionals around the world.

The concept of the course has been described in the British Medical Journal as the Global Health Network University.

Supercourse now boasts 31,207 faculty participants worldwide, of whom 530 are active participants from Pitt. Currently, LaPorte and his global team are developing a system to build schools of global health.

************************

Law professor Sandra Jordan was selected as a 2005 recipient of a Black Achievers’ Medallion by Black Opinion magazine of Pittsburgh. This award recognized Jordan for her career, which includes professional work with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as well as with law students.

Jordan also was honored for her contributions to the University community and the local bar association, and for her community service record, including her work with local churches and mentoring young people in area school programs who are interested in the study of law.

************************

Maureen Barsic, director of the School of Engineering’s cooperative education program, was named winner of the Alvah K. Borman award by the Cooperative Education Division (CED) of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Pitt’s co-op program is a partnership between employers and the University. It provides relevant work assignments for undergraduates students by integrating a rotation of school and employment terms enabling the cooperative education student to complement formal classroom training with additional technical knowledge, hands-on experience and financial remuneration.

This CED award honors the late Alvah Borman, dean of graduate placement services at Northeastern University, for his contributions to engineering cooperative education over many years, including the founding and editorship of CED Newsbriefs.

CED presents up to two awards each year to division members who have made sustained, honorable and meritorious contributions to the promotion of the philosophy and the practice of cooperative education in engineering and/or engineering technology. The award consists of a $500 honorarium, a plaque and a certificate of achievement.

************************

Two Pitt people have been named Fulbright Scholars for the 2005-2006 academic year. In addition, 17 faculty members from universities outside the United States have received Fulbright grants to study at Pitt this year.

The following individuals at Pitt were named Fulbright Scholars:

• Rosemarie Wooten, an administrator in the University Center for International Studies, participated in the U.S.-Germany International Education Administrators Program at the German-American Fulbright Commission in Berlin, Germany, during October and November.

• David Maurice Berman, an associate professor in the School of Education, will be lecturing and studying the topic “Confrontation with History in Postwar Bosnian Education” at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia, from February to July.

The international faculty who are visiting Pitt as Fulbright Scholars are:

• In anthropology: Shiun-Wey Huang, Taiwan; computer science: Jose I. Nunez Varela, Mexico; economics: Juan Carlos Padilla Cordova, Mexico, and Sonja Bjeletic, Serbia and Montenegro; history: Ludmila Cojocari, Moldova, and political science: Maria Andrea Castagnola, Ana Carolina Garriga and Juan J. Negri Malbran, all of Argentina, and Juan A. Rodriguez Zepeda, Mexico.

• In the School of Engineering’s Basic Metals Research and Processing Institute in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering: Manuel Gomez Herrero, Spain.

• In the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs: Asha M. Williams of Trinidad and Tobago; Luis J. Martin Del Campo Fierro of Mexico; Alexandra Barahona Posada of Honduras; Ariane Chebel of France; Christian Hald-Mortensen of Denmark, and Marco I. Velarde Rodriguez of Peru.

• In the School of Nursing: Lola Mahmudova, Tajikistan.

• In the School of Education’s Institute for International Studies in Education: Orlando Pacheco Pizarro, Costa Rica.

• In the School of Law: Lucas Tassara, Argentina.

Named for the late Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, the Fulbright Program was founded in 1946 to improve understanding and relations between the United States and other nations. The program awards approximately 4,500 grants a year, for both travel and study, to bring scholars representing a variety of disciplines from more than 120 countries to various higher learning institutions throughout the United States.

************************

Head coach Jodi Gault at the Johnstown campus joined an elite group of NCAA Division II women’s basketball coaches Nov. 19 when her Lady Cats defeated Tiffin (OH) University, 81-71, at the University of Findlay (OH) tournament. With that win, Gault became only the eighth coach in Women’s Division II Basketball history to reach 500 coaching victories.

Gault was awarded a plaque Dec. 4 by UPJ President Albert Etheridge commemorating her milestone victory prior to the Lady Cats’ 2005-06 home opener against Salem International (WV) University.

In her 24th season, Gault has compiled a 504-143 overall record (as of Dec. 4) and has led her teams to 14 NCAA post-season tournaments. Her teams have averaged nearly 21 wins per season and have been nationally ranked in 13 different seasons.

Gault’s 504 victories and .780 winning percentage rank seventh in victories and eighth in winning percentage among active Division II women’s coaches.

Along with the 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, Gault has guided her teams to five East Regional titles and a trip to the Final Four in 1987.

************************

Scott Mark, assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics in the School of Pharmacy, has been named to serve a two-year term on the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Foundation research advisory panel.

The foundation is committed to fostering research in the areas of medication safety and clinical pharmacy practice innovations. The foundation’s research advisory panel consists of pharmacy research experts who help guide the foundation in its research efforts and assist the board and staff in establishing research priorities and identifying funding opportunities.

Mark, who also is director of pharmacy at UPMC, is a past president of the Washington Metropolitan Society of Health-System Pharmacists. He has more than 12 years of experience in home health care and currently is the chairman of the board of the Nightingale Nursing Registry.

************************

An orthopaedic trauma surgeon known as a pioneer of multiple-trauma care and “damage control orthopaedics,” Hans-Christoph Pape, has been recruited by UPMC to be chief of the Division of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

Before joining UPMC, Pape was professor and vice chairman of trauma surgery at Hannover Medical School in Germany, one of Europe’s top medical and trauma centers. He is recognized internationally for his research and clinical work in developing optimal treatments for those with multiple serious traumatic injuries.

Pape has been a leading investigator of damage control orthopaedics, a concept mandating that seriously injured patients be stabilized and that organ and system functions be restored as fully as possible before surgical repair of orthopaedic injuries is begun. Over the last decade, this staged orthopaedic surgical approach has been instituted in trauma centers around the world, including UPMC, changing the way multiple-trauma patients are treated from admission through discharge and improving their outcomes.

Pape and colleagues have published research findings suggesting that the traditional approach of surgically repairing multiple orthopaedic injuries simultaneously with severe organ and system traumatic injuries immediately upon admission may not be essential and may cause additional unnecessary stress.

Pape’s other published research and clinical interests involve the relationship of orthopaedic repair to shock and organ failure, bone fixation and stabilization.

Pape’s career contributions to orthopaedic and trauma literature include more than 140 peer-reviewed articles, nearly half as lead author. He has been a presenter at more than 150 scientific national and international meetings and is a peer reviewer for numerous leading international journals. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Alabama and the University of Texas at El Paso, and has garnered numerous international clinical scientific achievement awards.