Shannon Harper, a nurse anesthesia student, was selected to receive a 2009 American Assembly for Men in Nursing Foundation/Johnson & Johnson Nursing Scholarship. The AAMN Foundation and Johnson & Johnson’s Campaign for Nursing’s Future joined forces in 2004 to offer scholarships to support male students seeking a graduate nursing degree.

Doctoral student Kelli Hall is the 2009 recipient of the Sigma Theta Tau International Patricia Smith Christensen Research Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded biennially, via a nationwide competition, to one doctoral student in maternity or pediatric nursing. Ms. Hall will use scholarship funds for work on her dissertation research study, “The Influence of Psychological Conditions On Oral Contraceptive-Attributed Side Effects and Continuation Rates in Minority Adolescent and Young Adult Women.” PhD students Sarah Collins, Pam de Cordova, Roberta Salverson,and Sharron Close also were named recipients of Sigma Theta Tau awards. Ms. Collins and Ms. de Cordova were honored for proposals titled “Informatics Methods to Promote Interdisciplinary Communication Related to Common Goals in the Intensive Care Unit” and “Off-Shift Nursing and Quality Patient Outcomes,” respectively. Ms. Salverson was awarded a grant for her dissertation proposal, “Expansion of Newborn Screening Panels: A Systematic Program Evaluation of Krabbe Disease Screening,” while Ms. Close received a grant from the Alpha Zeta chapter of Sigma Theta Tau to support the work of her dissertation proposal, “Klinefelter’s Syndrome: An Exploratory Study of Physical Phenotype, Reproductive Hormones, Cardiometabolic Biomarkers and Psychosocial Health in Boys between the Ages of 8 and 17 Years.” 

Postdoctoral student Christine Biondi, DMD, CDM ’08, has been honored with the Pugh Award by the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry. The award recognizes scholars who scored in the top 3 percent on the ABPD’s 2008 qualifying examination. Dr. Biondi will be recognized in the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry’s membership newsletter, Pediatric Dentistry Today, and at an upcoming reception in Hawaii.

Burton Edelstein, DDS, MPH, professor of clinical dental medicine-community health, has been honored with an outstanding service award by the American Association of Public Health Dentistry. Dr. Edelstein received his award at a ceremony last month in Portland, Ore.

Panos N. Papapanou, DDS, PhD, professor of dental medicine, chair of the Section of Oral and Diagnostic Sciences, and director, Division of Periodontics, was appointed associate editor of the Journal of Clinical Periodontology, the official publication of the European Federation of Periodontology.

Gudrun Aspelund, MD, assistant professor of surgery (in pediatric surgery), has been appointed to membership in the American Pediatric Surgical Association. Dr. Aspelund specializes in neonatal surgery and gastrointestinal and minimal access surgery for pediatric patients.

Jeffrey Bruce, MD, the Edgar M. Housepian Professor of Neurological Surgery Research, was honored with the Mahaley Clinical Research Award at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons meeting earlier this month in San Diego. The award, sponsored by the National Brain Tumor Society, recognizes excellence in neuro-oncology clinical research.

Marian Carlson, PhD, professor of genetics & development and of microbiology, was among 72 scientists elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Carlson, former vice dean for research, is on leave and serves as senior scientific officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Carlson’s work has helped elucidate the response of cells to metabolic stress through a pathway that plays an important role in diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. With Dr. Carlson’s addition, CUMC now has 15 NAS members.

Eric Kandel, MD, University Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, was honored this month at the 8th annual Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards. The awards celebrate the lives and accomplishments of immigrants who came to America through Ellis Island or the Port of New York, as well as their direct descendants. The ceremony took place May 19 at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

Benjamin Ohlstein, MD, PhD, assistant professor of genetics & development, has been named one of 15 2009 Searle Scholars nationwide. Dr. Ohlstein was chosen from 178 assistant professors nominated by 120 research institutions and universities for track records of innovative research and significant promise for sustained future contributions to biological research. Dr. Ohlstein will use $300,000 in Searle scholarship funds for a project titled “The Drosophila Intestinal Stem Cell Niche.” The Searle Scholars Program was established in 1981 to support and assist young biomedical researchers in their scientific endeavors.

Janet Sparrow, PhD, the Anthony Donn Professor of Ophthalmologic Science (in Ophthalmology and Pathology) and professor of pathology, has been selected for fellowship in the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the largest eye and vision research organization in the world with more than 12,000 members in 73 countries. The appointment recognizes association members for a singular level of accomplishment and leadership and for contributions to the association. Fellows serve as mentors and as ambassadors for the worldwide advancement of vision research.

Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, professor of epidemiology and of medicine (P&S) and director of the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs, has been selected by the publication Scientific American for its “Scientific American 10” honor roll. The selection honors 10 individuals who, in the judgment of the editors, have demonstrated leadership and accomplishment in ensuring that new technologies and biomedical discoveries will be applied for the benefit of humanity.

W. Ian Lipkin, MD, the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity, and professor of neurology and pathology (P&S), will direct the activities of the Northeast Biodefense Center, a consortium of more than 350 scientists and 28 institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and one of the National Institutes of Health’s Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Mailman has received nearly $50 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support research and training initiatives throughout the consortium. The Northeast Biodefense Center, established in 2002, is the largest of the nation’s 11 Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Northeast Biodefense investigators conduct interdisciplinary, interinstitutional research on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines to address the challenges of emerging infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance.

Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, professor of epidemiology and of psychiatry (P&S), has been elected president of the American Psychopathological Association. Dr. Susser’s term will begin in 2012.

Myrna Weissman, PhD, professor of epidemiology and of psychiatry (P&S) and chief of the Division of Epidemiology in the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was among a select group of epidemiologists invited to contribute to the Annals of Epidemiology’s first “Triumphs in Epidemiology” issue. Dr. Weissman’s article chronicles her career as a depression researcher, focusing on her beginnings during the height of the women’s rights movement in the 1970s, her role in the development of interpersonal psychotherapy as a mental health tool at that time, and her three decades of research in the nascent field of psychiatric epidemiology. As a mental health epidemiologist, Dr. Weissman has done groundbreaking work on maternal depression and the familial and genetic underpinnings of major depressive and anxiety disorders and conducted the first community survey of psychiatric illness.

Beverly Winikoff, MD, MPH, professor of clinical population & family health, has been named to the 2009 Irvin M. Cushner Lectureship by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Society of Family Planning. Selected in recognition of her distinguished career in the field of women’s health, her dedication to advances in reproductive rights, and her ability to inspire significant public policy debate, Dr. Winikoff will deliver the lecture at Reproductive Health 2009, a conference this fall in Los Angeles. Previous Cushner lecturers include U.S. surgeon general Joycelyn Elders, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), and former Mailman School dean Allan Rosenfield.

Faculty members representing three CUMC schools have been awarded Columbia University Professional Schools Diversity Research Fellowships, part of a $2 million initiative by Columbia President Lee Bollinger to promote and develop careers of diverse junior faculty. P&S, Mailman School of Public Health, and College of Dental Medicine fellowship recipients, who received $25,000 cash awards to support their research, were honored at a dinner earlier this month. Recipients and the titles of their proposals:

• Debbie Barrington, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology (Mailman), “The Reproductive Health Consequences of Segmented Assimilation: A Multilevel Analysis of Low Birth Weight and Neighborhood Context Among Immigrant and U.S.-born Black Women”
• Stephanie Cosentino, PhD, assistant professor of neuropsychology (P&S), “Deconstructing Metacognition in Alzheimer’s Disease”
• Thuy-Tien Dam, MD, assistant professor of clinical medicine-geriatric medicine and aging (P&S), “Hormonal Mediators of Sarcopenia and Frailty”
• Cristiane Duarte, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry (P&S), “Parental Imprisonment and Psychiatric Disorders in Children: Longitudinal Study of Puerto Ricans in Two Contexts”
• Joyce Moon Howard, DrPH, assistant professor of clinical sociomedical sciences (Mailman), “Life Course Perspectives on Health Disparities: A Longitudinal Cohort Study of Urban Inner-City African Americans”
• Angela Kadenhe-Chiweshe, MD, assistant professor of surgery (P&S), “Understanding the Mechanisms of Resistance to Anti-angiogenic Therapy in a Mouse Model of Hepatoblastoma”
• Fay Kastrinos, MD, MPH, assistant professor of clinical medicine-digestive & liver diseases (P&S), “Identifying Mutation Carriers of Mismatch Repair Genes in Colorectal Cancer among African Americans Undergoing Clinical Genetic Testing”
• Stavroula Kousteni, PhD, assistant professor of medicine-endocrinology (P&S), “Sirtuin/FoxO1 Signaling, a Unifying Link Between Pathways Controlling Longevity and the Age-related Loss of Bone Mass”
• Elizabeth Philippone, DMD, assistant professor of clinical dental medicine (College of Dental Medicine), “Mucositis in a Cohort of Patients with Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB)”
• Adrienne Phillips, MD, MPH, assistant professor of clinical medicine-hematology/oncology (P&S), “HTLV-1 Related Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma: Exploring the Use of Novel Drugs for the Treatment of Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Disease”
• Anita Sen, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics (P&S), “Acute Lung Injury and Matrix Metalloproteinase-13”
• Yuanjia Wang, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics (Mailman), “Statistical Methods for Mapping Genes in Longitudinal Genetic Studies”
• Chunhua Weng, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics (P&S), “Bridging the Semantic Gap Between Research Eligibility Criteria and Clinical Data”
• Lori Zeltser, PhD, assistant professor of clinical pathology (P&S), “Maternal Programming of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Regulation of Neuronal Lineages that Influence Energy Homeostasis”

Amelia J. Alverson, vice president of development at Stanford University Hospital and Clinics, will join us July 15 as CUMC vice president for development. Ms. Alverson has more than 20 years of experience in fundraising, including the last few years at Stanford, where she built a new Office of Hospital Development to raise money for capital and programmatic priorities, including a $500 million campaign for a new hospital. She launched a revitalized annual giving program that attracted more than 325 new donors to the hospital and increased giving by nearly 1,000 percent. Before joining the senior leadership team at Stanford, she held positions at Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, Northwestern University’s medical school, and the University of Illinois. She has an MBA from the University of Toledo and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Central Florida.

Molecular cloning pioneer Thomas P. Maniatis, PhD, will join Columbia during the 2009-2010 academic year as chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics. A graduate of the University of Colorado and Vanderbilt University’s doctoral program in molecular biology, Dr. Maniatis is perhaps best known for his work in developing a method to clone messenger RNAs and in creating the first human DNA library, making it possible to isolate virtually any human gene. He is currently the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University and has held research and faculty positions at the Medical Research Council of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, England), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the California Institute of Technology.

Mailman School of Public Health

Eric Schrimshaw, PhD, has been appointed assistant professor of sociomedical sciences, effective Feb. 1. Dr. Schrimshaw studies the role of interpersonal factors on health and psychological well-being and in particular examines the negative health consequences of concealment and non-disclosure in stigmatized populations. A graduate of Eckerd College, City College, and the doctoral program in social/personality and health psychology at the City University of New York, Dr. Schrimshaw previously worked as an adjunct professor of psychology at CUNY's Hunter College and as a research associate at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia.

Cory Abate-Shen, PhD, professor of urology and of pathology & cell biology (in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center), has received the 2009 Gordon Becker Creativity Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Dr. Abate-Shen will use the $100,000 to identify dysfunctional regulatory molecules and pathways that are common to both human and mouse models of prostate cancer. A collaborative effort with Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center colleagues Michael Shen, PhD, professor of medicine-oncology and of genetics & development; Andrea Califano, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics; and Carlos Cordon-Cardo, MD, PhD, the Chernow Family Professor of Clinical Urological Sciences (in urology) and professor and vice chair of pathology, the research will focus on minimizing the traditional limitations of genetic mouse models for cancer research, identifying new targets for therapeutic intervention, and speeding drug development in prostate cancer.

René Hen, PhD, professor of neuroscience and of pharmacology (in psychiatry), has received a one-year $100,000 distinguished investigator award from NARSAD. The grant will advance Dr. Hen’s research on stimulation of cell growth in the brain’s hippocampus to produce antidepressant effects in both rodent models and human subjects. He is one of only 16 scientists to receive the award this year.

Anna Lasorella, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics and of pathology (in the Institute for Cancer Genetics), has received a five-year $1.7 million extension of funding from the National Cancer Institute for her ongoing study of ld proteins as master regulators of cell proliferation, differentiation, and stem cell self-renewal and their role in tumor development and tumor angiogenesis in the brain.

Francis Y. Lee, MD, PhD, associate professor of orthopedic surgery and vice chair for research in orthopedic surgery, has been awarded a four-year $1.8 million research project (R01) grant, one of only a handful ever given to an orthopedic surgeon, by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Dr. Lee, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in bone and soft tissue tumors, metastatic bone cancers, and pediatric orthopedics, will work to target biomolecular pathways that induce inflammatory bone loss in response to the introduction of biomaterials. He now has two R01 grants.

Toni S. Pearson, MD, postdoctoral clinical fellow in the Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Other Movement Disorders, has been granted $130,000 in fellowship funds over two years by the American Academy of Neurology Foundation. Under the auspices of this clinical research training grant, Dr. Pearson will examine aspects of motor performance that are the most relevant indicators of stroke recovery in children.

Yaakov Stern, PhD, professor of clinical neurology, has received a five-year $1.2 million funding renewal from the National Institute on Aging for a training program in neuropsychology and the cognition of aging.

Chunhua Weng, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics, has been awarded a three-year $1 million research project (R01) grant by the National Library of Medicine to improve the use of electronic health records in the clinical trials eligibility screening process, developing a new framework to match the language of eligibility criteria with the language of clinical data. Goals are to help investigators better identify research participants.

Elaine J. Abrams, MD, professor of epidemiology and of pediatrics (P&S), has received $500,000 over five years from the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Funds will help Dr. Abrams train, educate, and increase the number of skilled HIV/AIDS health care providers in the African country of Swaziland.

Robin Flam, MD, DrPH, assistant clinical professor of epidemiology and of medicine (P&S), has been awarded $1.5 million over three years from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration for a global HIV/AIDS nursing initiative.

Mary Gamble, PhD, assistant professor of environmental health sciences, has received $2.4 million over five years from the National Cancer Institute to study folic acid and creatine as therapeutic approaches for lowering blood arsenic.

Julie Herbstman, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist in environmental health sciences, has been awarded $903,000 over five years by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for a study of prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons among a cohort of sibling pairs.

Rachel Moresky, MD, MPH, assistant clinical professor of medicine and of population & family health (Mailman) and director of international emergency medicine, has received a $2.5 million grant over three years from the GE Foundation for an emergency medical systems improvement program for regional hospitals in two rural districts of Ghana. The program, a partnership between the Ghana Health Service and a consortium of U.S.-based physicians, will focus on providing technical knowledge transfer and identifying best practices in the delivery of care to acutely ill patients and trauma victims in west Africa.

John L.P. Thompson, professor of clinical biostatistics and of neurology (P&S), has received $141,000 in supplemental funding over two years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to support an ongoing statistical analysis examining the use of the enzyme TNK (Tenecteplase) as a drug for acute stroke.