Newsmakers: July 2012

Teddi Dineley Johnson

Foege awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

Former APHA President William Foege, MD, MPH, in April was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the nation’s highest civilian honor. A physician and epidemiologist, Foege is an emeritus professor of international health at Emory University and a senior fellow with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His many accomplishments include helping to lead the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He is also a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a co-founder of the Task Force for Child Survival — now the Task Force for Global Health — which promotes childhood immunizations and works to prevent polio, measles, river blindness and other diseases.

Kuehnert joins Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

APHA member Paul Kuehnert, MS, RN, in April was named senior program officer and public health team director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Kuehnert formerly served as county health officer and executive director for health for Kane County, Ill.

African Medical and Research Foundation lauded

The African Medical and Research Foundation in April received the World Federation of Public Health Associations’ 2012 Organizational Award. Presented every three years, the organization received the award for founding the international awareness campaign Stand Up for African Mothers and for working to achieve lasting health changes in some of the remotest communities in Africa.

LaForce honored for meningitis vaccine work

The Sabin Vaccine Institute in May presented its annual Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award to F. Marc LaForce, MD, for his work to develop a new meningitis vaccine. Immediately following the vaccine’s launch in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in 2010, the incidence of meningitis in those countries dropped to zero, according to a news release from the Sabin Vaccine Institute. LaForce completed his work on the new vaccine while serving as director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project.

Eriksen named founding dean

Michael P. Eriksen, ScD, in May was named founding dean of the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Among his many accomplishments, Eriksen previously served as professor and director of the Institute of Public Health and as a senior advisor on noncommunicable disease and health promotion at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

NIDCR establishes national research network

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in April awarded a $66.8 million, seven-year grant that will consolidate its dental practice-based research network initiative into a unified nationally coordinated effort. The consolidated initiative, renamed the National Dental Practice-Based Research Network, will be headquartered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry.

Research!America announces new board members

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Keith Yamamoto, PhD, vice chancellor for research at the University of California–San Francisco, in March were elected to serve on the board of directors of Research!America. Re-elected to three-year terms were Jay Gershen, DDS, PhD; Elizabeth Baker Keffer; Alan I. Leshner, PhD; Lucinda Maine, PhD, RPh; John R. Seffrin, PhD; and Elias Zerhouni, MD.

Gibbons to lead NHLBI

Gary H. Gibbons, MD, in April was named director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Gibbons is a professor of physiology and medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and the founder and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute.