Awards & More

Issue Date: 
February 5, 2007

The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management has selected Melissa Somma, assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy and director of the Rite Aid/University of Pittsburgh Patient Care Initiative, to receive its Merit Award in community and ambulatory practice. Somma was chosen based on her extensive contributions to community pharmacy practice. She will receive the award during APhA’s annual meeting March 18 in Atlanta.

Jeannette South-Paul, chair of the Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine, is one of four physicians selected to receive the American Medical Association Foundation’s 2007 Pride in the Profession Award. The award honors physicians who have brought a sense of pride to the medical profession and whose actions promote medicine and public health.

South-Paul is being honored for helping poor, disabled, or disadvantaged patients through a medical career that has been guided by a special interest in providing care for the underserved and underrepresented and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in medicine.

Douglas Kondziolka, vice chair of neurological surgery and professor of radiation oncology in the Pitt medical school, recently was installed as president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, an international organization that promotes public welfare through the advancement of neurosurgery by a commitment to excellence in education and dedication to research and scientific knowledge.

Kondziolka also was installed as the Peter J. Jannetta Professor of Neurological Surgery at Pitt during a ceremony here Dec. 19.

The Scleroderma Foundation has appointed Carol Feghali-Bostwick, a Pitt assistant professor of medicine, to a three-year term on its board of directors. The Scleroderma Foundation serves the interests of people with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease noted for the thickening and tightening of the skin. Each year, the foundation funds at least $1 million in new grants for scleroderma research.

Susan Albrecht, associate professor and associate dean for student and alumni services and development and public relations in Pitt’s School of Nursing, has been elected to the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) board of directors for 2007. AWHONN focuses its efforts on the delivery of care to women and newborns in hospitals as well as in home care and ambulatory care settings. Albrecht has been a member of AWHONN for more than a decade, chaired a number of advisory panels, and led a smoking-cessation project for the organization.

Malcolm McNeil, Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the Department of Communication Science and Disorders in Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, has been appointed a Research Career Scientist by the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA).

The designation recognizes McNeil’s achievements and contributions to the advancement of science, VA research, and national and international research communities as well as his collaboration with and mentoring of other scientists. As part of the honor, McNeil will receive support for his study of the language disorder aphasia and the motor-speech disorder apraxia, both of which frequently result from stroke.

Randall Smith, senior associate dean in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy; Melissa Somma, assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics and director of the Rite Aid/University of Pittsburgh Patient Care Initiative; and Margie Snyder, community practice resident in the pharmacy school, received an American Pharmacists Association Foundation Incentive Grant for Practitioner Innovation in Pharmaceutical Care. The grant is funding a research project titled “Development of Collaborative Patient Care Relationships: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis.” Snyder also is serving on the advisory board of the Pittsburgh
Schweitzer Fellows Program during 2007. The program gives students in the health professions opportunities to work with underserved Pittsburgh communities on yearlong projects.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has awarded a $155,000 grant to Kim Coley, a Pitt associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, to support her research project titled “Predictors of Successful Aripiprazole Treatment in Psychiatric Patients.” The project will identify patients and treatment factors that predict successful treatment with aripiprazole in the inpatient setting.

Thad Zaleskiewicz, a Pitt-Greensburg emeritus professor of physics, has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). The APS Fellowship Program recognizes society members for original research and publications as well as innovative contributions toward the application of physics to science and technology. Each year, no more than one half of 1 percent of APS members are elected as fellows.

Gary T. Dovey has been named director of the Business Resource Center at Pitt’s Bradford campus. “Gary brings extensive experience to the Business Resource Center,” said Kate Moody, Pitt-Bradford diector of outreach services. “He possesses the skills necessary to achieve our mission of assisting entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow and prosper.”

Charles F. Reynolds III, UPMC Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry in Pitt’s medical school, will receive the American College of Psychiatrists’ (ACP) Award for Research in Geriatric Psychiatry during the ACP annual meeting Feb. 21-25 in Palm Springs, Calif.  Reynolds’ career has focused on clinical research in mood and sleep disorders of later life. Reynolds also has developed tools for young physicians to increase recruitment and retention of junior investigators in geriatric psychiatry.

Perla Ilagan, an assistant professor of nursing at Pitt-Bradford, has been named an ambassador to the National League of Nursing (NLN). The first UPB faculty member to gain that status, Ilagan will work to foster a strong relationship between Pitt-Bradford’s nursing department and the NLN and inform her colleagues about NLN programs and ways that faculty can be involved in the league’s education-focused initiatives. NLN is the accrediting agency for U.S. nursing education.

Albert L. Etheridge, president of Pitt’s Johnstown campus, has been awarded a Certificate of Meritorious Service and Life Membership by the South Asian Literary Association, an allied organization of the Modern Language Association of America.

The award recognizes Etheridge’s encouragement of multicultural literature and support of the South Asian Review (based at Pitt-Johnstown and edited by UPJ Professor of English Kamal D. Verma), the refereed journal of the South Asian Literary Association.