Awards and Honors: Winter 2017

Dimitri Augustin Named American Society of Nephrology Diversity Fellow

As Diversity and Inclusion Fellow for the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), Dimitri Augustin has been serving on the ASN Diversity and Inclusion Committee since February 2017. In this role, Augustin provides feedback to the organization about its diversity and inclusion efforts during the internship year by participating in all committee activities, including monthly conference calls. In addition, he has attended an in-person committee meeting (which was held in Dallas in March) and the annual ASN exhibit at the Student National Medical Association Annual Meeting (which was held in Atlanta in April). He assisted with planning for the Diversity and Inclusion Annual Lunch event for Kidney Week, which was held in New Orleans on November 2.

ASN awards only one internship on its Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which is involved in far-reaching initiatives that not only strengthen ASN but also improve the lives of the patients it serves serve and those serving them. In addition to the chance to support those efforts, the fellow has many opportunities to contribute to articles and network with longstanding members in the field.

Augustin is currently a postdoctoral nephrology fellow at Stanford and the Innovation Fellow with the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. He completed both residency and medical school at the University of Miami. He has a master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Miami. 

Ke Yuan Receives 2017 Parker B. Fellowship Award

Following an extremely competitive selection process, which narrows a large pool of candidates down to 10-12 fellows each year, Ke Yuan, an instructor of pulmonary and critical care medicine, has been named a member of the prestigious Parker B. Fellowship (PBF) class of 2017. The three-year award provides career development support to M.D.  and Ph.D. scientists embarking on careers in clinical, laboratory or translational science related to pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine.

Mark Nicolls, MD, professor in pulmonary and critical care medicine, says, “The recipients of this award from the past, which extends back to 1976, are a veritable Who's-Who for pulmonary medicine, and it has been said that receiving this award is a great predictor of future academic success.” Past PBF recipients at Stanford include Angela Rogers, Kari Nadeau, and Joe Hsu.

Yuan’s prior accolades include “the best talk” at the Aspen Lung Conference. She is also the recipient of the American Heart Association Postdoc Award and the Cournand and Comroe Young Investigator Award.

Stephanie Harman Named Cambia Sojourn Scholar Leader

Stephanie Harman, MD, clinical associate professor in primary care and population health, has been selected as one of ten Sojourns Scholars by the Cambia Health Foundation. The program, which seeks to advance palliative care, will provide Harman with a two-year, $180,000 grant to support her research: harnessing machine learning to improve palliative care access. 

As Harman explains, many perceive the electronic medical record to be a “barrier to patient-clinician interactions,” but she seeks to harvest its machine learning possibilities. “In collaboration with Ken Jung, PhD, and Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD, at our Center for Biomedical Informatics Research, I have built a model that identifies patients at a high risk for mortality in the next year,” she says. “We will use the risk estimated by the model to prompt timely palliative care screening and evaluation on the inpatient medicine services, with the goal of increasing access to basic palliative care and specialty palliative care services.”

Harman graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and completed a residency at Stanford and a Palliative Care fellowship at the Palo Alto VA/ Stanford program before joining the Stanford faculty. She describes her residency as “the crucial period when I discovered what moved me in medicine: the intersections of suffering, uncertainty, and hope in serious illness.” She learned from teachers and mentors that the gift they give patients is “not looking away, and…engaging with our patients and families in the process of hoping.”

As a 2017 Sojourns Health Scholar, she will do just that, helping the Cambia Foundation “take an active role in shaping the future.”

Celina Yong Receives 2017 McCormick and Gabilan Faculty Award

Stanford’s Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (OFDD) has selected Celina Yong as one of six recipients of its 2017 McCormick and Gabilan Faculty Award. OFDD established the 2-year, $30,000 award to provide research/project funding to junior faculty women for career advancement (or to junior faculty men or women who support the advancement of women in medicine through research). In addition to the monetary award, winners are provided the opportunity to participate in OFDD training designed to advance their career development at Stanford.

Yong has a bachelor of science degree in molecular environmental biology from the University of California, Berkeley; a master of science degree from the London School of Economics, Health Policy, Planning and Financing; and an MBA from Oxford. Following an internal medicine residency at UCSF, she completed two cardiology fellowships at Stanford (where she also attended medical school). Additional recognitions include the American Heart Association’s Mentored Clinical and Population Research Award and the American College of Cardiology Foundation/Merck Cardiovascular Research Fellowship.

Steven Lin Receives STFM President’s Award and Appointment to Board of Directors

At its annual meeting in San Diego in May, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine recognized Steven Lin with its 2017 President’s Award. Lin, only four years out of residency, is likely one of the youngest members to receive this honor, which is given to individuals who have had a significant positive impact on family medicine. In addition, STFM has appointed Lin to a 3-year term on its board of directors

STFM President Melly Goodell says, “I first met Steven at our annual meeting last year in Minneapolis, and his passion, commitment, vision, and leadership potential struck me immediately.” As a member of STFM’s Faculty for Tomorrow Task Force, Lin lead a 2-year initiative to address the critical shortage of family medicine faculty. This work drew the attention of the STFM board nominations committee, which “identified him as a rising star whose vision we wanted as a part of our formal STFM leadership structure,” says Goodell. Sang-ick Chang agrees. In describing Stanford Medicine’s pride in Lin being chosen for the President’s Award, he says, “Dr. Lin is indeed a star and a visionary leader in our field.”

Lin, who has a bachelor of science degree from Duke University, completed medical school, internship and residency at Stanford. He is the associate chief for medical education in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health and medical director with Stanford Family Medicine. He has received numerous teaching, mentorship and leadership awards. 

Renu Dhanasekaran Receives Award from American College of Gastroenterology

The American College of Gastroenterology has recognized Renumathy Dhanasekaran with one of three 2017 Junior Faculty Development Awards. The $300,000 awards, which provide funding over three years, support junior investigators at critical points in their career development. Award recipients are working toward independent careers in clinical research in gastroenterology or hepatology. Dhanasekaran, for example, is currently exploring plasma glycoproteomic biomarkers for invasive human hepatocellular carcinoma.

Dhanasekaran attended medical school at Madras Medical College in India and completed her internship and residency at the University of Florida. After a gastroenterology fellowship with the Mayo Clinic, she came to Stanford for a fellowship in gastroenterology/transplant hepatology. She is past recipient of the Mayo Clinic’s William H. Summerskill Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research, and she has presented research at both the ILCA Liver Meeting in Austria and the EASL HCC Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Dean Winslow Receives ISDA Society Citation

Dean Winslow recently received an Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Society Citation. Winslow, a veteran and infectious disease and internal medicine specialist, was cited for his “extensive knowledge, deep compassion, and wide-ranging experience over more than four decades.” The IDSA lauded his career, including his early work with HIV drug resistance studies and his time as a flight surgeon in the Air National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling him “a compassionate, committed clinician, teacher, and military veteran who has been a champion for patients with HIV and victims of war and disaster.”

Winslow, who was presented with the citation on October 5 at the IDSA meeting in San Diego, thanked several of his colleagues for their help along the way, expressing his appreciation for their friendship, support, and collegiality, along with their mentorship and the trust they placed in him. “Attending on the Stanford wards has been a wonderful honor,” he said. 

Megan Mahoney Named Vice Chief of Staff for Stanford Health Care

Megan Mahoney has just been named Vice Chief of Staff for Stanford Health Care. Mahoney will serve in this position for three years before rising to the office of Chief of Staff and serving there for three years.

Mahoney relies on a collaboration among researchers, medical educators and health care administrators for her work. She aims to provide patient-centered and compassionate services that enable patients to reach their health and wellness goals. In her academic work, she focuses on developing innovative and transformative approaches to proactive and personalized team-based primary care that empower patients, health care providers, and both national and international communities. She’s interested in innovating primary care strategies, pioneering the shift from a health care system focused on medical care for individual patients toward an integrated health system focused on health and wellness of a population.

Branimir Sikic Chairs Prestigious International Oncology Conference

Branimir Sikic organized and chaired the 13th Central European Oncology Congress (CEOC). The multinational meeting was held in Opatija, Croatia, in June and attracted 245 registrants from 19 countries. Awarded the “Best of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)” status, the event highlighted the most cutting-edge science and education from the world’s premier oncology event, the ASCO Annual Meeting. It also included multidisciplinary tumor boards, a forum for young oncologists and clinical research poster presentations.

Sikic attended medical school at the University of Chicago and completed his internship, residency and a fellowship at Georgetown University. He is the director of Stanford’s Clinical and Translational Research Unit and scientific program committee chair for the ASCO. He has been recognized by the Government of Croatia with a Presidential Medal for Science and Medicine and is past recipient of an ASCO Statesman Award. Sikic holds two U.S. patents related to research completed at Stanford.

Manisha Desai Receives Mentoring Recognition Award

Manisha Desai received a Mentoring Recognition Award from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistical Consulting. The award seeks to “recognize excellence in mentoring and to encourage creativity and sustained commitment to mentoring.” They specifically want to recognize “those who have provided mentorship in statistical consulting education, scholarship, and/or practice.”

Mary Boulos, MPP, Associate Managing Director of the Quantitative Sciences Unit, said the award was well-deserved, citing Desai’s “significant mentoring efforts in the area of team science, here at Stanford and beyond.”

Paul Bollyky Elected to ASCI

Paul Bollky, MD, PhD, assistant professor of infectious diseases, microbiology, and immunology, has just been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigators (ASCI). Bollyky is an immunologist and infectious disease specialist. He’s also the principal investigator of the Bollyky Lab, which does matrix immunology research.

The ASCI, which was founded in 1908, is “one of the nation’s oldest and most respected medical honor societies,” comprised of more than 3,000 physician-scientists from all medical specialties.  It “seeks to support the scientific efforts, educational needs, and clinical aspirations of physician-scientists to improve human health.”

The ASCI elects up to 80 new members each year for “their significant research accomplishments.” Members must be 50 years of age or younger for their election, which means that “membership reflects accomplishments by its members relatively early in their careers.”

Read more about the ASCI here.