Chronicling...
University of Pittsburgh Newsmakers

July 24, 2006 Issue

1. TRUE DEDICATION The newly renamed Thomas E. Starzl Biomedical Science Tower was formally dedicated during a June 23 ceremony. Starzl (pictured)—Pitt Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery and director emeritus of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute—spearheaded the transformation of organ transplantation from an intriguing research concept to a relatively routine clinical reality, laying the groundwork for an entirely new field of medicine.

2. CHAIRING AND HOSTING Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg (center) and Nikki Nordenberg (left) chaired the annual dinner of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP May 4 in the Hilton Pittsburgh, downtown. The pre-dinner reception was hosted by the Nordenbergs and Randal Pinkett (right), who was hired by Donald Trump on NBC-TV’s The Apprentice in December 2005. Pinkett, the first African American hired on the show, is cofounder, president, and CEO of BCT Partners, a Newark, N.J.-based technology and policy consulting firm.

3. FACING BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CHALLENGES During a June 29 conference on “Behavioral Health Challenges from the Perspective of Ministers” organized by Pitt Associate Professor of Africana Studies Jerome Taylor (pictured), participants discussed possible ways of changing institutional policies and practices to address behavioral health challenges in the community, as identified by church ministers—including high levels of depression, anxiety, stress, addictive behaviors, and mood swings. Conference participants plan to develop, by September, a proposal for offering new training to churches, community organizations, and behavioral health providers and opening safe, candid opportunities for dialogue between churches and provider communities on how best to reduce and prevent behavioral health problems. The conference was sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Family Excellence, an example of a human service entity (as opposed to a bioscience or technology entity) that was initially housed at Pitt but later was spun off as an independent center.

4. “FAMILI” PRACTICE As acting chair of the Pitt School of Dental Medicine’s Department of Periodontics, professor of periodontics, and director of the school’s periodontal residency program, Pouran Famili serves as a role model for female dental students. (During the 2005-06 academic year, 39 percent of Pitt dental students were women.) Famili’s research specialties are periodontal disease and osteoporosis. She immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1977 and joined Pitt’s periodontics department the following year as a clinical instructor. Since then, Famili has earned four advanced degrees at Pitt: the M.D.S. and D.M.D. degrees in 1980 and 1985, respectively; the M.P.H. in 2000; and the Ph.D. in epidemiology in 2005.