Honors & Other Things |
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March 4, 2014, Volume 60, No. 25 |
PCORI Research Award: Dr. Apter
Physician Award: Dr. Feudtner
Hematology Prize: Dr. High
NSF CAREER Award: Dr. Kavan
ASME Fellow: Dr. Ponte Castañeda
Humboldt Research Award: Dr. Pop
ACH Board: Ms. Porter
PCORI Research Award: Dr. Apter
A team led by Dr. Andrea Apter, professor of medicine at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, has won Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) funding for a study of methods to reduce asthma-related health disparities.
The project will be conducted in collaboration with the Community Asthma Prevention Program of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and focus on patient populations in the Philadelphia region. The team will study the outcome effects of electronic medical records systems that interactively connect asthma patients to health care providers.
Dr. Apter is a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute and chief of the section of allergy & immunology within the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care.
Physician Award: Dr. Feudtner
Dr. Chris Feudtner, associate professor of pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Steven D. Handler Endowed Chair of Medical Ethics at CHOP, is the recipient of the 2014 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award in the mid-career category. Presented annually, the Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards recognize five physicians who have distinguished themselves in advancing the practice of palliative care and model exemplary skill and compassion at the bedside.
In nominating Dr. Feudtner for the award, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor and chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine, wrote that Dr. Feudtner’s “plural excellences—extraordinary success as a nationally recognized researcher and ethicist combined with exceptional face-to-face skills—make him, in my mind, the epitome of the kind of doctor all worried parents would want for their sick children and the embodiment of the clinical leader needed by complex health care organizations serving sick children and their families.”
Dr. Feudtner is also the director of the department of medical ethics, director of research for the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at CHOP and a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute. He is recognized for his leadership in promoting better, more patient-driven care for children at the end of their lives, as well as for their families and has received numerous awards for his teaching, mentoring and research. |
Hematology Prize: Dr. High
Dr. Katherine A. High, William H. Bennett Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, was honored for her trailblazing scientific and clinical research in the bleeding disorder hemophilia when she received the 2013 E. Donnall Thomas Prize from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) at its annual meeting.
The award recognizes pioneering research achievements in hematology that have helped move the field forward. An internationally recognized expert in the molecular basis of hemophilia, Dr. High has developed novel approaches to correcting hemophilia with gene therapy in studies over the past two decades. Her studies continue today in a current NIH-funded clinical trial for hemophilia.
The Prize recipient customarily delivers the E. Donnall Thomas Lecture to the ASH conference audience. Dr. High’s lecture, “Sailing to Ithaca: Gene Therapy’s Odyssey from Investigational Agent to Therapeutic Product,” described the successes and obstacles of the evolving science and practice of gene therapy as it pursues the goal of offering long-lasting treatments of previously incurable diseases.
In presenting the E. Donnall Thomas Prize, ASH president Janis L. Abkowitz said, “Dr. High is unquestionably a leader in gene therapy and has made remarkable, groundbreaking contributions to the field, demonstrating creativity, determination and the ability to overcome numerous obstacles. Through her countless discoveries, Dr. High has transformed the notion of utilizing genetically engineered mechanisms for treatment of incurable inherited disorders from a distant vision to reality.”
Dr. High is the founder and director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at CHOP. She also is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and an attending physician at CHOP.
NSF CAREER Award: Dr. Kavan
Dr. Ladislav Kavan, an assistant professor in the department of computer and information science in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award for his proposal, “Geometric Shape Deformation with Applications in Medicine.” Dr. Zahra Fakhraai, an assistant professor in the department of chemistry in the School of Arts and Sciences, also received this award (Almanac February 4, 2014).
The CAREER awards are among the NSF’s most prestigious honors and are granted to junior investigators to support research that will serve as a foundation for their body of work. Each award comes with approximately $500,000 in funding over a five-year period.
Dr. Kavan’s research explores new approaches to real-time computer graphics and animation. In his recent work, he studied how to take a standard physics-based deformation model and transform it into a geometric “deformer,” i.e., a simple closed-form algorithm that can produce virtually the same result, but several orders of magnitude faster than the original formulation. In his previous work, he applied techniques from abstract and linear algebra, spectral methods and finite elements to improve upon technology used in the game and film industries.
ASME Fellow: Dr. Ponte Castañeda
Dr. Pedro Ponte Castañeda, Raymond S. Markowitz Faculty Fellow and professor in the department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The ASME Committee of past presidents confers the Fellow grade of membership on worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding engineering achievements.
Dr. Ponte Castañeda’s research is in the area of heterogeneous material systems, including composites, polycrystalline aggregates and particulate flows. Most recently, Dr. Ponte Castañeda’s group has been developing constitutive models for magneto- and electro-elastic materials capable of undergoing large strains and investigating possible applications as active materials, including “artificial muscles,” as well as investigating the non-Newtonian rheology of dispersions of soft elastic particle in viscous fluids.
Humboldt Research Award: Dr. Pop
Dr. Florian Pop, Samuel D. Schack Professor of Algebra in the department of mathematics in the School of Arts and Sciences, has been elected the recipient of a Humboldt Research Award.
This award is conferred in recognition of lifetime achievements in research. In addition, the award winners are invited to carry out research projects of their own choice in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany. The award is valued at 60,000 EUR (over $82,600).
Dr. Pop combines methods belonging to algebraic geometry, arithmetic geometry, Galois theory and model theory.
ACH Board: Ms. Porter
Dot Porter has been elected vice president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), a major professional society for the Digital Humanities (DH). Ms. Porter is the curator of Digital Research Services in Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. Ms. Porter’s term as vice president begins at the close of the Digital Humanities July 2014 conference and she will serve in that role through 2016. She has previously served on the ACH Executive Council and was the executive secretary of the ACH 2007-2012.
Ms. Porter plays an integral role in digital humanities scholarship at the Penn Libraries. She manages Vitale II Media Lab, a digital scholarship lab in the Kislak Center, which provides technology and staff resources for digital humanities projects that involve data formatting and analysis, web development, digital humanities tools and special collections materials. Ms. Porter also arranges courses, workshops and labs for students, staff and faculty interested in learning these new methods of research and preservation. Ms. Porter’s own research focuses on innovative applications of technology to the study of medieval manuscripts.
ACH supports and disseminates research and cultivates a vibrant professional community through conferences, publications and outreach activities.
Related: $1.5 Million Health Resources and Services Administration Grant to Advance Geriatric Care: Dr. Trotta
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