William King

• William R. King, University Professor in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business (KGSB), has been given a Leo Award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement in Information Systems (IS).

In announcing the award, Richard T. Watson, president of the Association for Information Systems, said, “The three cornerstones of the information systems field are the MIS Quarterly, the International Conference of Information Systems, and the Association for Information Systems. Bill King has played a leadership role in every one of these scholarly domains as editor-in-chief, cofounder and conference chair, and founding president, respectively. It is very appropriate that the IS field’s most prestigious award, the Leo, is given to Dr. King, who for more than a quarter of a century has been a leading IS scholar and leader of IS scholars.”

King has served on the KGSB faculty for 37 years and was one of those who, in the 1960s, created the academic field of IS. Since then, he has contributed more than 300 papers to the leading journals in IS and related fields and has authored, coauthored, or coedited 15 books. One of King’s books, coauthored with David Cleland, currently a professor emeritus in Pitt’s Department of Industrial Engineering, won the McKinsey Foundation Award as a “distinguished contribution to management.”

Along with several Nobel laureates, including John Nash of A Beautiful Mind fame, King recently received an INFORMS Inaugural Fellow Award; recipients included some 100 people deemed to have most influenced management science in the last 50 years. King is also a fellow of the Association for Information Systems, the American Association for Advancement of Science, and the Decision Sciences Institute.

King returned full-time to Pitt in January after recovering from three major surgeries, two of them liver transplants. He expressed pride and gratitude for the Leo Award but said he has somewhat mixed feelings that a “lifetime achievement” award will be viewed as the capstone of his career. King says he hopes and expects to continue contributing to the IS field for many years.

The Leo Award, established in 1999 and named for the Lyons Electronic Office (one of the world’s first commercial applications of computing), previously had been given to only 10 individuals. King accepted the award last month at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

New Pitt Chronicle Editor, Senior News Representative Named Bruce Steele, Karen Hoffmann Bruce Steele has been named editor of the Pitt Chronicle, having served as interim editor since October. Steele joined the Office of Public Affairs’ Department of University News and Magazines in July as the senior news representative for science and technology. Karen Hoffmann replaces Steele as the science/technology senior news representative. She is responsible for generating local, regional, and national media coverage for the School of Engineering, the School of Information Sciences, and the natural science departments in the School of Arts and Sciences. Hoffmann also is a staff writer for the Pitt Chronicle. She had served in those positions on an interim basis since October. “Bruce Steele, with more than two decades of experience at Pitt as a writer and editor, will lead our drive to make the award-winning Pitt Chronicle an even more informative, well-written, and lively publication,” said Robert Hill, vice chancellor for public affairs. “Karen Hoffmann is a talented, emerging technical writer and media relations specialist who is contributing significantly to our mission of telling the world about the groundbreaking and momentous work being done by researchers at Pitt.”

• The Society for Biomaterials has announced that Stephen Badylak, research professor in Pitt’s Department of Surgery and director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering within Pitt’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is the 2005 recipient of the Clemson Award for Applied Research.

Selections for the award are based on work that has resulted in the significant utilization or application of basic knowledge in science as evidenced by the development of useful devices or materials that are widely used or accepted, or by expanded knowledge of biomaterials/host tissue relationships that have received widespread acceptance and have resulted in improvements in the clinical management of disease. Badylak was honored for his discovery of small intestinal submucosa as a biomaterial scaffold; it has been used to assist more than 250,000 patients.

• During a planned Feb. 23 reception at WQED Multimedia, Jack L. Daniel, Pitt vice provost for undergraduate studies, dean of students, and professor of communication, will receive the Duquesne Light African American Leadership Award for his contributions to education. Video spots featuring Daniel and the three other 2005 awardees will air on WQED-TV in February. Awardees also will be featured in the February issue of Pittsburgh Magazine and on WQED’s Web site, www.wqed.org.

• Pennsylvania Business Central named Albert L. Etheridge, president of Pitt’s Johnstown campus, one of its Top 100 People in 2004. Included on the list were business people and organizational leaders in the newspaper’s coverage area, which includes 16 Pennsylvania counties. Pennsylvania Business Central published its Top 100 People 2004 issue Dec. 17.

• Thomas D. Horan, director of safety and security at Pitt’s Greensburg campus, has received the 2004-05 President’s Award for Staff Excellence.

Horan has been at Pitt-Greensburg since 2000. Since then, five campus police officers have been certified under the Municipal Police Officers Training Act. Horan organized a campus safety committee that meets twice a semester to discuss campus safety issues, and he is president of the Pitt-Greensburg Staff Association. An instructor at the state police academy, Horan also trains constables and teaches at Westmoreland County Community College. He recently was named a member of the Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau Task Force to study the delivery of services to dependent children.

• Stephen Thomas, Philip Hallen Professor of Community Health and Social Justice in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) and School of Social Work and director of the Center for Minority Health (CMH) within GSPH, was lead guest editor of the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), along with two colleagues from the Pitt School of Medicine—Michael Fine,professor of internal medicine, and Said Ibrahim, assistant professor of internal medicine, who each also have appointments at the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center and the VA’s Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP).

The journal included several contributors from Pitt as well as other scholars from across the nation who participated in the 2004 National Minority Health Leadership Summit, sponsored by CMH and CHERP.

The American Journal of Public Health is the official publication of the American Public Health Association, the oldest and largest association (with more than 50,000 members) of public health professionals in the world. Titled “Health Disparities: The Importance of Culture and Health Communication,” the December issue was devoted entirely to the challenge of eliminating health disparities.

“Efforts to eliminate health disparities must be informed by the influence of culture on the attitudes, beliefs and practices of not only minority populations but also public health policymakers and the health professionals responsible for the delivery of medical services and public health interventions designed to close the health gap,” Thomas wrote in the lead editorial.

“We believe that matching the cultural characteristics of minority populations with public health interventions designed to affect individuals within the group may enhance receptivity to, acceptance of, and salience of health information and programs,” he added. “Building upon the success of working in Black neighborhoods throughout Pittsburgh, this approach is consistent with the documented evidence that factors such as belief systems, religious and cultural values, life experiences and group identity act as powerful filters through which information is received,” Thomas wrote.