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September 2, 2004

People of the Times

Claudia Roth last week was appointed president of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) and vice president of behavioral health at UPMC. Roth has been serving in this role on an interim basis since January.

Roth has been with WPIC for nearly 18 years. She has a Ph.D. in public health administration and clinical psychology from Pitt and has served in several WPIC senior administrative positions over the past decade.

“I look forward to continuing the organization’s legacy of providing state-of-the-art care as well as guiding the organization’s change and growth in ways that further distinguish WPIC and UPMC behavioral health as one of the country’s premier behavioral health service delivery systems,” Roth said.

 

Patricia Sweeney, visiting assistant professor at the Center for Public Health Practice (CPHP) in the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), was recently awarded the nationally competitive 2004 Pfizer Faculty Scholar Award in Public Health for her project “Public Health Workforce Recruitment, Retention and Promotion in the Civil Service System.”

The Pfizer Faculty Scholar Awards in Public Health, part of the Pfizer Medical & Academic Partnerships awards, are nationally competitive career development awards intended to support the development and career track of junior faculty in public health interested in pursuing community-based, public health practice research. These awards also are intended to foster collaborative partnerships between accredited schools of public health and state and local departments of public health.

With the $130,000 award for a two-year national study, Sweeney will identify the procedures and criteria utilized for public health hiring and promotion within the respective civil service systems of the 50 states, analyze the laws governing those systems, and determine the extent to which these systems are supporting public health competency-based hiring and promotion. The study is expected to result in a model for competency-based assessment of personnel that can be incorporated into public-health personnel systems.

Sweeney, who holds an appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management at GSPH, worked as a home-care and public health nurse for 24 years before receiving her M.P.H. degree from GSPH.

A 2003 graduate of Pitt’s School of Law, Sweeney is a past recipient of the Faculty Scholar Award for Excellence in Legal Scholarship for her research on childhood lead exposure. Her past work includes serving as program manager for several Department of Justice-funded studies in the areas of community health planning, adolescent problem behaviors and chronic, violent juvenile offenders.

Sweeney’s research is endorsed by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Association of State Personnel Executives.

“Currently, state health agencies are facing financial cuts as well as retirements of experienced personnel on a massive scale,” says Margaret A. Potter, director of CPHP and Sweeney’s mentor on this project. “Sweeney’s proposed research will contribute critically important information to help these agencies to maintain and to build their workforces with highly qualified personnel.”

 

Also at GSPH, Charles R. Rinaldo Jr., chairman and professor of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, has been recognized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his superior competence and outstanding productivity through the grant of a MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award for his research.

MERIT Awards provide long-term support to investigators with records of scientific achievement in research areas of special importance or promise who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to and success in research. Less than 5 percent of NIH-funded investigators are selected to receive MERIT Awards.

The award was given for Rinaldo’s NIH funded research on methods of improving immune control of residual HIV-1 viral infection during highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), in particular using immunotherapeutic vaccines.

Rinaldo also is professor of pathology at Pitt’s School of Medicine and assistant director of the clinical microbiology laboratory, with primary responsibility for the Clinical Virology Laboratory at UPMC. This laboratory performs tests for diagnosis of viral and chlamydial infections.

Rinaldo received his A.B. in bacteriology in 1969 from Syracuse University and his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Utah in 1973. He did postdoctoral research in herpes virus pathogenesis from 1974 to 1978 at the Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a member of the Pitt faculty since 1978.

 

Thomas E. Starzl, director emeritus of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, professor of surgery at the School of Medicine and widely known as the “father of liver transplantation,” was among six transplant surgeons recognized at a special reception last month at the National Kidney Foundation 2004 U.S. Transplant Games in Minneapolis.

Starzl performed the first human liver transplant in 1963 and the first successful liver transplant in 1967. Thirteen years later, Starzl brought transplantation a step forward when he introduced anti-lymphocyte globulin and cyclosporine, the next stage in immunosuppressive medication after the development of azathioprine and corticosteroid. These discoveries advanced the field for transplantation and became the accepted form of treatment for patients with liver, kidney and heart failure.

By 1989, Starzl introduced the anti-rejection medication FK506, which served to increase survival rates for liver and other organ transplants. This led the way to successful surgeries for rare organ transplants including pancreas, lung and intestine. Today, Starzl is active in research, mapping the relationship between donor and recipient cells post-transplant, a therapy called immune tolerance.

The U.S. Transplant Games is a four-day Olympic-style competition featuring 13 different sports, nearly 2,000 organ transplant recipients and 500 donor families nationwide to celebrate the success of transplantation while also creating awareness for the need for more organ donors.

 

W. Allen Hogge, director of the Center for Medical Genetics at UPMC, has been appointed chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Pitt’s School of Medicine. He has served as interim chair since the 2003 retirement of Richard Sweet.

As chairman, Hogge will be responsible for developing and supervising a strong department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Magee-Womens Hospital and for coordinating the mission of Magee with those of the medical school and the University of Pittsburgh Physicians.

In addition, he will be responsible for all departmental research and direct its research mission as well as have an instrumental role in developing an overall research plan for the Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI).

Hogge, who also serves as professor in the obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences department, will retain responsibilities as a clinical investigator for the MWRI; medical director for both the Genetic Counseling Training Program at Pitt and the Department of Genetics at Magee; director of the Division of Reproductive Genetics at the Pitt medical school; director of the medical genetics fellowship and residency training program, and associate professor of human genetics at the Graduate School of Public Health.

Hogge has been a faculty member at Pitt since 1992. He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He received specialty training at the University of California in San Francisco and served on the faculty there and at the University of Virginia prior to coming to Pitt.

 

Research by Karl Johnson, Pitt associate professor of chemical engineering, is featured in the National Science and Technology Council’s report, “Science for the 21st Century,” released by the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

The work featured is his imaging of hydrogen storage in carbon nano-tubes. The full report is available at: View the report www.ostp.gov/nstc/21stCentury/.

 

Lee Gutkind, professor of English and former director of the writing program at Pitt who founded the creative nonfiction program here, received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree Aug. 21 at Chatham College’s graduate closing ceremony honoring its ninth class of master’s and doctoral students.

Gutkind is founder and editor of “Creative Nonfiction,” the first and largest literary journal to publish nonfiction exclusively. He is widely published and has won numerous awards.

His award-winning “Many Sleepless Nights,” an inside chronicle of the world of organ transplantation has been reprinted in Italian, Korean and Japanese editions. “An Unspoken Art,” a profile of veterinary medicine, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Gutkind’s new memoir, “Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather,” was partially inspired by a Vanity Fair article by James Wolcott pinpointing (and lambasting) Gutkind as the “godfather behind creative nonfiction.”

 

Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, dean of the Pitt School of Nursing, professor of nursing, epidemiology and occupational therapy and director of the nursing school’s Center for Research in Chronic Disorders, will deliver the keynote address today at Pitt-Titusville’s 17th annual academic convocation.

Dunbar-Jacob has a national and international reputation within the discipline of nursing and across other health care disciplines.

She has spent nearly three decades as an educator, teaching nursing students from the undergraduate through the doctoral levels, as well as medical students, public health students, medical residents and psychology students. She has also mentored a significant number of junior nursing faculty.

In 2000, Dunbar-Jacob was appointed to the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Nursing Research. In 2001, she received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award at Pitt. In 2003, she was accepted into the Robert Woods Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program. This year, she was elected president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research for the 2004-2005 term.

Dunbar-Jacob is active nationally in the American Heart Association, has served in several leadership positions, including president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and as a board member of the Society for Clinical Trials. She is a fellow in the Society for Behavioral Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the Academy for Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Psychological Association and the American Heart Association.

 

Melissa Ibañez, director of financial aid at Pitt-Bradford, has been selected by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators to be a peer reviewer for the association’s Standards of Excellence Program.

The program, which is in its fifth year, provides an institution with an objective assessment of its financial aid program to help the institution’s financial aid professionals better prepare their offices for their next evaluation by giving them advice on how to improve their financial aid delivery.

Peer reviewers must meet certain criteria, including being currently employed as a financial aid administrator at a post-secondary institution, having at least eight years of financial aid experience, being up-to-date on the current regulations, and possessing the ability to be innovative and willing to take direction.

As a peer reviewer, Ibañez will work as part of a team with two to four other reviewers. She will travel across the country with them and visit other institutions that are similar to Pitt-Bradford. The team will conduct one-on-one interviews, lead focus groups or review student files and other documentation. Ibañez will be conducting three audits each year.

Filed under: Feature,Volume 37 Issue 1

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