Deborah Walker

• Leslie A. Rhodes, a grants research administrator in Pitt’s Department of Chemistry, will become the new president of the Allegheny chapter of the Society of Research Administrators (SRA) at the chapter’s semiannual meeting Friday.

• Professor John S. Lazo, chair of Pitt’s Department of Pharmacology, has been appointed the chair of the Extramural Grants Council for the American Cancer Society. His term runs through 2005.

• Tamara Mills, a student in the Department of Occupational Therapy in Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, has been appointed to the Fellowship Advisory Board of Pittsburgh’s Jewish Healthcare Foundation and Coro Center for Civic Leadership.

• Jerome S. Schultz, Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering and Medicine, professor of chemical engineering, and director of Pitt’s Center for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, will present the 33rd Annual Donald L. Katz Lectureship in Chemical Engineering

The lectureship will take place April 10 and 11 at the University of Michigan.

Schultz will present two lectures titled “Learning from Biology: From Membranes to Sensors” and “Making Sense out of Biosensors.”

• Assad Panah, professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, has been named president of the National Association of Academies of Science (NAAS).

Panah, also director of the college’s geology department and its environmental studies program, was elected president Feb. 15 at the joint annual meeting of NAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Junior Academy of Sciences.

Most recently, he served as president-elect of NAAS, a multidisciplinary scientific organization comprising 44 state and regional scientific academies at the national level. Panah served as the president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science from 1998-2000.

• James P. Bradley, team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers since 1991 and orthopaedic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), has been elected president of the National Football League (NFL) Physicians Society.

During Bradley’s two-year term as president, he will represent all 32 NFL teams’ physicians while interacting with various NFL boards and committees as well as the NFL Players Association.

Bradley, former cocaptain of the Penn State Nittany Lions football team and winner of the 1975 Dapper Dan College Football Award, also serves on the NFL Injury and Safety Panel.
Bradley also serves as the team physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers when the team plays in Pittsburgh and as an orthopaedic consultant to several local high school and college athletic teams.

• Jeffrey S. Upperman, assistant professor of surgery in Pitt’s School of Medicine and a pediatric surgeon with Children’s Hospital, was recently appointed chair of the Allegheny County Medical Society’s (ACMS) Child Health Advisory Committee. Upperman, who served as vice chair in 2002, also is on the ACMS legislative and communication committees.

In addition, Upperman recently was accepted as a member of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma and the Pittsburgh Surgical Society.

• Robert Arnold, the Leo H. Criep, M.D., Professor in Patient Care and director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Comprehensive Palliative Care Program, cowrote an article in the March 4, 2003, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, titled “Hope for the Best, and Prepare for the Worst.”

By using various scenarios and guidelines, the article advises physicians how to communicate effectively with patients who have life-threatening illnesses.

• “One Man’s War,” written by Linda Delaney, Pitt-Bradford’s manager of payroll and auxiliary accounts, is featured in the February 2003 issue of World War II magazine.

The article is about Bradford-area veteran Vince Goodrich and chronicles the sinking of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Battle of Leyte Gulf on Oct. 25, 1944. Goodrich was a sonarman 3rd class on the ship.

• Faculty and staff in Pitt’s Schools of the Health Sciences and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) received three of the seven Health Care Hero Awards presented March 6 by the Pittsburgh Business Times in a ceremony at the Sheraton Station Square. Evelyn Talbott, professor of epidemiology and communications science in the Graduate School of Public Health, received the health care innovation and research award for her groundbreaking research into Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Steven Kanter, vice dean in the School of Medicine, won in the health care educator category. UPMC’s Artificial Heart Program received the award in the medical professional/nonphysician category. The team includes bioengineers Steve Winowich, the program’s clinical director, Rob Stone, Doug Lohman, Donald Severyn, and Richard Schaub; and nurse coordinators Eileen Stanford and Lisa Carozza.