Honors & Other Things

Two Leeway Awards
Dr. Lorene Carey, professor of English, and Teresa Leo, senior electronic communications specialist at ISC, have received Leeway Foundation Awards. Dr. Carey won the Leeway Award for Achievement in the 2003 fiction/creative nonfiction category. Ms. Leo, won a Seedling Award in the same category. The Leeway Foundation's program recognizes excellence and achievement by Philadelphia area women visual artists and writers.

Mr. Hendrickson: Heartland Prize
Mr. Paul Hendrickson, lecturer in the English Department's Creative Writing Program of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, has won the 2003 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction for his book, Sons of Mississippi, which tells the stories of seven white Mississippi sheriffs in the infamous 1962 Life magazine photograph. It depicts the sheriffs as they prepared for the unrest they anticipated in the wake of James Meredith's planned attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi. The focus of the book is on how the legacy has played in the lives of their families.

Dr. O'Brien: Lifetime Achievement
Dr. Charles P. O'Brien, the Kenneth Appel Professor of Psychiatry, director of Penn's Center for Studies of Addiction, vice chair, department of psychiatry, has received the Nathan B. Eddy Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research. Dr. O'Brien received the award from the National College on Problems of Drug Dependence, the oldest research society in the United States devoted to addressing issues of drug dependence and abuse. He received the award in recognition of his extensive work in the field of addictions. He is also director of psychiatric research at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Dr. Lautenbach: Dade MicroScan Award
Dr. Ebbing Lautenbach, associate professor of infectious diseases, and a senior scholar at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the school of medicine, has received the Dade MicroScan Young Investigator Award for his work on the epidemiology of nosocomial antimicrobial resistance. He was one of 19 scholars honored by The American Society for Microbiology.

Dr. Clevenger: Pfizer Award
Dr. Charles V. Clevenger, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine has received the Pfizer Outstanding Investigator Award. The American Society of Investigative Pathology presented the award to Dr. Clevenger for his work in prolactin's role in breast cancer. Dr. Clevenger demonstrated how prolactin, a naturally occurring hormone needed for milk production, has a role in the advancement and spread of breast cancer. Recently, Dr. Clevenger discovered that prolactin, unlike all other peptide hormones, functions directly inside the cell.

Dr. Magnus: Agriculture Committee
Dr. David C. Magnus, assistant professor in the department of medical ethics, has been appointed to a new advisory committee on biotechnology and 21st century agriculture  by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Ann M. Veneman. Dr. Magnus will be part of an 18-person committee charged with examining the long-term impacts of biotechnology on the U.S. food and agriculture systems, as well as with providing guidance to the USDA on issues related to the application of biotechnology in agriculture.

Dr. Koppel: Association President
Dr. Ross Koppel, adjunct professor of sociology, has been named president of the Sociological Practice Association, an international body of clinical and applied sociologists. He is currently the principal investigator of a study on the costs of Alzheimer's disease to U.S. businesses. Dr. Koppel received the William Foote Whyte/Sociological Practice Career award from the American Sociological Association in 1998 and the Sociological Practice Award from the Society for Applied Sociology in 2002.

Dr. Lang: National Quality Forum
Dr. Norma M. Lang, the Lillian S. Brunner Professor of Nursing, has been named a director of the National Quality Forum. She will serve on the board of directors of the forum for an initial term of three years. Her term began on May 1. The mission of the National Quality Forum is to improve American health care through endorsement of consensus-based national standards for meaningful information about whether care is safe, timely, beneficial, patient-centered, equitable, and efficient.

Dr. Cashmore: National Academy of Sciences
Dr. Anthony R. Cashmore, professor of biology and director of the Plant Science Institute, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Cashmore studies the mechanisms by which plants respond to light. In the 1990s Dr. Cashmore's laboratory first characterized cryptochrome, a photoreceptor that senses blue and ultraviolet light. Related receptors have since been found to play a role in circadian rhythms in animals, including humans. He is one of 72 scientists recognized for their distinguished research achievements this year.

Dr. Fishman: Alternative Medicine
Dr. Alfred P. Fishman, professor of medicine and senior associate dean for program development, and director of the Office of Complementary and Alternative Therapies in the School of Medicine, has been appointed to the Institute of Medicine's "Committee on the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public." The Committee is a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, and will conduct a one-year review of how best to identify, study, measure and evaluate existing complementary therapies, so they can be incorporated into conventional medicine practices.

Three Shepard Science Award Winners
Dr. Sandra A. Norman, research associate professor EPID, Dr. Jesse A. Berlin, professor of biostatistics, and Dr. Brian Strom, chair and professor of biostatistics and EPID and director of the Center for Clinical EPID and Biostatstics, have received the Charles C. Shepard Science Award, Assessment and Epidemiology for Scientific Excellence Demonstrated by the publication Oral Contraceptives and the Risk of Breast Cancer. The article was in The New England Journal of Medicine, 2002;346:2025-32.

Ms. Howard: Stewart Award
Ms. Elsie Sterling Howard, CW '68, chair of the Penn Press Board, former president of the Alumni Society, a former Trustee, and a long-time volunteer, has received the Ernest T. Stewart Award for Alumni Volunteer Involvement from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). She received it for her  "innovative ideas, trademark enthusiasm, expert skills, critical leadership, and plain hard work in service to the University."

HUP on Honor Roll
HUP has been listed on the Honor Roll of Hospitals for the seventh consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report. HUP is one of only 17 in the nation and the only one in the Delaware Valley to be recognized for its exceptional performance. Fourteen areas of specialization were noted: cancer; digestive disorders; ear, nose & throat; eyes; geriatrics; gynecology; heart & heart surgery; hormonal disorders; kidney disease; neurology & neurosurgery; psychiatry; rheumatology; respiratory disorders; and urology. The survey evaluated about 6,000 hospitals in the U.S. based on their reputation among a group of randomly selected board-certified physicians. The rankings were in the July 28 issue of U.S. News and World Report and are online at www.usnews.com.

Health System Most Wired
UPHS has been named on of the nation's "Most Wired" according to the 2003 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study released by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. The survey measured the nation's hospitals on their use of Internet technologies for safety and quality, customer service, disaster readiness, business processes and workforce issues. "Information has become an essential medical tool for our healthcare workers--every bit as important to patient care as any other diagnostic device," said Dr. George Brenckle, chief information officer of UPHS. "It is our goal to facilitate the seamless processing and retrieval of patient information and allow our patients to feel confident in our abilities to care for them while respecting their privacy."

More Fulbrights
In addition to the seven recipients of Fulbrights, (Almanac May 13) there are 11 more Penn recipients who have recently been announced:

Sucharita Adluri (GAS): Transformations in Hinduism: A Case Study from South India.

Elise Carpenter (GAS): Development and Health in Botswana: Clinical Transformations Caused by the Implementation of ARVT.

Christopher Close (GAS): Judicial Persecution and Practised Tolerance in Sixteenth Century Kaufbeuren, Germany.

Brian Ehrlich (COL '03): Developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy in the Dominican Republic.

Alexa Firat (GAS): Delineating the Parameters of the Syrian Novel within the Context of the Arabic Literary Heritage, Syria. (Declined)

Brooke Jones (COL/WH '03): The Effects of an Increase in "Legal" Collateral on the Profitability of Microfinance Institutions, Peru.

Megha Jonnalagadda (COL '03): English Teaching Assistantship, Turkey.

Vani Krishnamurthy (COL '01): South Asian History, India.

Jonah Lowenfeld (COL '03): High-Rise Council Housing in Britain: An Historical Review for Creative Reuse, United Kingdom.

Marjorie Rosenfelt (COL '03): Teaching Assistantship, France.

Paul Zimmerman (GAS): Middle Hadramawt Archaeological Survey: Changing Settlement Patterns in Ancient Yemen.

Correction: The ACLS Fellows listed in the July issue, were actually recipients from the 2001-2002 ACLS Fellowship Program.                --Ed.

  Almanac, Vol. 50, No. 2, September 2, 2003