2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards

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January 21, 2022

2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” This inspirational quote was the focus of Emory’s 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards, which recognized individuals and agencies for their outstanding action to advance social justice through activism and voting. This year’s ceremony also honored the Rollins School of Public Health’s Dean Jim Curran, founding dean of the program and one of its most stalwart and influential supporters.

Launched more than 20 years ago, the awards program exemplifies Emory’s commitment to building a more fair and just society. Representing our schools of public health, medicine, nursing, and business, the program also reflects our broad institutional commitment to collegiality, constructive culture, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Please visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards website to learn more about the program, as well as our current and prior honorees. Congratulations to all!

Please direct questions and comments to evphafeedback@emory.edu.

Jonathan S. Lewin, MD, FACR
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, Emory University
Executive Director, Woodruff Health Sciences Center
CEO and Chairman of the Board, Emory Healthcare

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Highlight

The Emory University Hospital (EUH), Emory University Orthopaedics and Spine Hospital (EUOSH), and Emory Wesley Woods Hospital (EWWH) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Advisory Committee has undertaken a myriad of activities designed to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Last month, the committee met for an all-day retreat laying the foundation for a five-year DEI Action Plan that will come together during the next few months.

The committee has announced that Nika White, president and CEO of Nika White Consulting, will serve as the guest speaker for its Black History Month keynote event Monday, February 21. (Event details to follow.) The committee also has plans to launch implicit bias education across the operating unit through general session offerings and targeted departmental trainings.

The EUH, EUOSH, and EWWH DEI Advisory Committee is excited about these opportunities for crucial conversations that will allow team members across the hospitals to better work together.

In Brief
New dean of Rollins School of Public Health

M. Daniele Fallin, an internationally regarded researcher and educator, has been named the new James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH). Fallin will join Emory July 1, 2022. Fallin currently serves as chair of the Department of Mental Health for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Fallin’s appointment follows an extensive international search. She will succeed James W. Curran, who joined RSPH as dean and professor of epidemiology in 1995 following a 25-year career at the CDC. Read more.


Need help bringing your invention to market?

Emory Venture Navigator serves Emory researchers interested in bringing inventions and discoveries to market–either through a licensing agreement or by starting a company. The newly updated Emory Venture Navigator website has rounded up resources inside and outside Emory to give you: answers to basic questions about commercialization, advice and funding sources to help you launch a company around your invention, and ways to grow a company you’ve started. While much of the information on the Emory Venture Navigator site is oriented around biomedical innovation, it’s intended to serve all Emory researchers.


Center for Health in Aging relaunches as hub for research innovation

The Emory Center for Health in Aging is relaunching as a central hub for innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration across the Emory community, focused on strengthening the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health of older adults. Camille Vaughan, associate professor in the division of geriatrics and gerontology, will serve as the center’s director and Ken Hepburn, co-director of the Emory Roybal Center for Dementia Caregiving Mastery, will serve as senior associate director for research. Read more.


The state of COVID-19 in our community

Medical leaders from Emory Healthcare, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Grady Health System joined leaders from other local health systems on January 20 in a virtual briefing on COVID-19. They presented an urgent and unified call to action to address the ongoing pandemic and provided current perspectives from the front lines of their hospitals and health systems. View the briefing here.


National Academy of Inventors names Bellamkonda, Cooper as 2021 fellows

Emory University Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda, a biomedical engineer, and groundbreaking immunologist Max D. Cooper have been named 2021 fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The NAI Fellows program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. Read more.


School of Nursing ranks third in NIH funding

For the seventh straight year, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing (SON) is among the top five nursing programs of total grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The school posted the third-highest total, with approximately $10.5 million in research grants, fellowships, training grants, and other awards from NIH in the past fiscal year. Read more.


WHSC Health Professions Education Journal

WHSC is launching a health professions education journal and is currently seeking to staff the journal with members of the Emory community. View a full description of the journal, job descriptions, and application materials. Questions may be directed to Rosemary Pitrone at rpitron@emory.edu. Applications are due on Monday, January 31, and final decisions will be made by early March.


Woodruff Health Educators Academy (WHEA) Fellowship in Educational Scholarship

The WHEA 18-month longitudinal certificate program is for health science educators who want to develop skills in educational research and scholarship. It consists of expert-led workshops to develop educational research skills coupled with a mentored scholarly project to be conducted in the participants’ authentic education settings. There will be a live chat information session on Feb. 2, 5-6 p.m., online via Zoom, link here. Apply or learn more. Contact WHEA@emory.edu with questions.


Xiao Hu joined the SON as acting professor and associate director of the Center for Data Science. Read more.

Chethan Pandarinath, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded the NIH’s 2021 New Innovator Award, an honor that recognizes exceptionally creative early career investigators. Read more.

Caleb Raine, Winship physician assistant, received an Advanced Practice Unsung Hero Award from Emory Healthcare, recognizing his role in developing and leading Winship’s COVID-19 urgent care clinic.

Barbara Rothbaum, executive director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, was honored with a lifetime achievement award for her work on innovative psychological treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder. The award was presented by the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies. Read more.

Amit Saindane, chief of radiology for Emory University Hospital, has been named interim chair of the SOM Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. Read more.

Randi N. Smith, trauma surgeon and surgical ICU physician at Grady, has been appointed the inaugural vice chair of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Department of Surgery. Read more.

Jennifer Stevens, psychiatry assistant progessor, has been named to the editorial board of Neuropsychopharmacology, the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Calendar

March 22: Business Case for Nursing Summit presented by SON and Goizueta Business School. 8 a.m.–4 p.m. More information here.


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