Thomas Aaberg, director of the Emory Eye Center, was feted at a surprise party recently when the center announced a $1 million endowment named in his honor. Earnings of the new endowment will support training of clinical ophthalmology fellows. Aaberg also received the 1997 W. H. Helmerich III Award for Outstanding Achievement in Retina Research.

Rafi Ahmed, professor of microbiology and immunology, was appointed editor of Virology and of Microbial Pathogenesis.

Wayne Alexander, director of cardiology, was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also elected to the board of the American Heart Association.

Daniel Barrow, chair of neurosurgery, is president-elect of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

Robert Bays was elected vice president of the Georgia Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and will be president in the year 2000.

Kenneth Bernstein, pathology and laboratory medicine, received a $2 million MERIT (method to extend research in time) award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to continue research on the renin-angiotensin system and its effects on cardiovascular function.

Scott Boden, director of the Emory Spine Center, received the prestigious Volvo Award for Low Back Pain Research from the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine. The award cited his success with generating spine fusions in animal studies using a gene that he and his co-workers recently discovered.

William Branch, Jr., division director, general medicine, has been named Carter Smith Professor of Medicine.

Associate Professor Geoffrey Broocker was awarded the Walthour-DeLaPerriere Chair in ophthalmology.

William Casarella, chair of radiology, is the new president of the American Board of Radiology. He will also become president of the American Roentgen Ray Society in May 2000. He was honored this spring by the Friends of the Morehouse School of Medicine at the 1998 Salute to Excellence as an outstanding contributor to the school.

World-renowned researcher and teacher Michael Davis has been recruited from Yale as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Davis has been funded for the past 15 years as a Level V Public Health Service scientist and is a fellow of the leading psychiatric professional associations.

Robin DeAndrade is president-elect of the Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Association.

Nationally known HIV researcher and health psychologist Ralph DiClemente is the School of Public Health's new Candler professor and chair of behavioral sciences and health education. DiClemente focuses on developing interventions to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and HIV in adolescents and young women. He has written more than 70 articles, eight books, some 40 book chapters, and is on the editorial board of three journals.

Raymond J. Dingledine, professor and chair of the department of pharmacology, received an Epilepsy Research Award from the American Epilepsy Society and the Milken Family Foundation.

The American Cancer Society awarded a three-year Junior Faculty Research Award to Brian Evavold, assistant professor, microbiology and immunology.

Erica Frank, assistant professor, family and preventive medicine, was awarded the Rising Star Award by the American College of Preventive Medicine.

Robert Gunn, chair of the department of physiology, has been nominated as president of the cell and general physiology section of the American Physiological Society.

Retired hypertension specialist Dallas Hall received the Charles R. Hatcher Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Health.

Roland Ingram, Jr., M. West Looney Professor of Medicine and director of pulmonary medicine, received the Trudeau Award, which each year recognizes an accomplished pulmonologist in the country.

Michael Johns, director of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, serves on the NIH Board of Governors and is president-elect of the American Board of Otolaryngology. He also serves as the vice chair-health of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.

Spencer King III is president of the American College of Cardiology, the first interventional cardiologist to hold this title.

Juha Kokko, chair of the department of medicine, and his colleague, Kamal Badr, have formed Renalogics Inc. to commercialize an experimental drug for kidney disease.

Dennis Liotta, university vice president for research, is chair of the AIDS and Related Research Study Section 4, Center for Scientific Review, of the NIH.

Lawrence Lutz, chair, family medicine, was the 1997 Educator of the Year of the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians.

Nursing Professor Deborah McGuire heads the planning committee for the Fifth National Cancer Nursing Research Conference of the Oncology Nursing Society. She also co-chairs the Board of Georgia Cancer Pain Initiative.

Al Merrill, biochemistry, is secretary for the American Society for Nutritional Science and chair of the External Advisory Committee of the Life Sciences Research Office within the Federation of American Society for Experimental Biology.

William Mitch, Garland Herndon Professor of Renal Medicine, received the Robert H. Herman Memorial Award from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition for his contributions to the understanding of chronic renal failure.

Charles Nemeroff, R. W. Harris Professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the American College of Psychiatrists Research Award in Mood Disorders. He is also on the board of directors of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich.

Neuro-ophthalmologist Nancy Newman received the Honor Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

John Parks is president of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society.

From the Director  /  Letters

Yerkes: Link to the Past,
   Hope for the Future

Build It and They Will Come

Putting the PhD in Nursing

Moving Forward  /  Noteworthy

Facing Death and Dying

Internationally known immunologist Robert Rich will join the Emory School of Medicine in September as executive associate dean/research. He will oversee implementation of the school's research strategic plan and further planning and development in that area. An adviser to the NIH and AAMC, Rich comes to Emory from Baylor College of Medicine, where he was vice president and dean of research.

Alan Stoudemire, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the Thomas P. Hackett Award, the highest honor given by the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Douglas Wallace, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Molecular Genetics, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

John Waller, chair of anesthesiology, now heads the International Anesthesia Research Society.

Stephen Warren, biochemistry, has been appointed as a member of the steering committee of the Genome Action Coalition of the American Society of Human Genetics.

Sharon Weiss, the new vice chair and director of anatomic pathology, is president of the US Academy of Pathology and chairs the World Health Organization Committee on Histological Classification of Tumors.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of Emory cardiologist Nanette Wenger, heart disease has shed its reputation as a man's disease. She has uncovered significant differences in how heart disease affects women and men, and has spoken out about underrepresentation of female subjects in medical research. In June, she was named Physician of the Year by the American Heart Association.

Two former deans of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing - Mary Woody and the late Ada Fort - were honored this spring as among 50 Georgia Women Pioneers in Health Care. Others recognized from Emory included Dorothy Brinsfield, retired executive associate medical school dean; Camille Davis-Williams, clinical chief of obstetrics at Crawford Long Hospital; Luella Klein, director of the Maternal and Infant Project at Grady; Evangeline Papageorge, retired assistant dean of the School of Medicine; Jennie Perryman, director of the Center for Transplantation at Emory Hospital; Elizabeth Sharpe, nursing professor and midwife; and cardiologist Nanette Wenger, who directs the cardiac clinics at Grady Hospital.