Shyam Visweswaran inducted as an International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics fellow
Shyam Visweswaran, a biomedical informatics professor and vice chair of clinical informatics in Pitt's School of Medicine, has been named a fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI).
The director of the Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence is one of 31 new IAHSI fellows who were elected to the Class of 2024.
IAHSI serves as an honor society that recognizes expertise in biomedical and health informatics internationally, and fellowship is one of the highest honors in the field.
4 Pitt staffers honored with professional development award
The Pitt Staff Council honored four employees with the 2024 Frisch Staff Professional Development awards.
The award supports Pitt staff members’ goal to enhance their professional and personal engagement at the University by pursuing professional development opportunities. It is designed to help cover expenses, including tuition at Pitt, attendance at professional conferences and participation in workshops, training sessions and more.
This year’s winners are:
- José Goyco-Blas, a manager in Pitt’s Kohl Lab
- Valerie Kerr, graduate engineering professional development consultant in the Swanson School of Engineering
- Carolyn Mazzella, sponsored projects administrator in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences
- Allison Vorp, a research administrator in the School of Medicine.
Staff Council serves as a center for input and dissemination of information and provides a means of communication between staff and others at Pitt. Membership is comprised of University staff representations as well as officers elected by council membership.
Alex Mowrey earns young alumni award from Slippery Rock University
Alex Mowrey, a social media content strategist in Pitt’s Office of University Communications and Marketing, was among Slippery Rock University alumni to receive a 2024 Rock Solid 10 Under 10. The annual awards honor Slippery Rock alumni who graduated no more than 10 years ago and who have accomplished significant professional and/or personal milestones.
Mowrey graduated from Slippery Rock with a degree in communication in 2015. He was then hired by Pitt's Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, where he worked for 8 years before joining the PittOfficial social media team.
Along with managing the @PittOfficial social media accounts, he is a photographer for Pitt Athletics and Major League Baseball team the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also works on the NFL’s live content correspondent team, capturing home games for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Pittsburgh is Mowrey's passion, and you can find his iconic cityscapes and portraits in unexpected places across the city — and in his online portfolio.
The Slippery Rock University Alumni Association recognized Mowrey and the other nine honorees at a June 8 awards brunch during Alumni Weekend.
Photography by Josh Veon
Dev Hayostek among the 2024 Bright Young People recognized by Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ organization
Dev Hayostek was honored in May as one of Pittsburgh’s Bright Young People for 2024, an award he hopes will highlight the important work being done by Pitt’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Office.
Hayostek (SOC WK ’23G) was recognized during the Allies for Health and Wellbeing’s annual Free for All banquet, formerly known as the Allies Ball, held at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
“In this past year, we’ve been able to engage with probably 14,000 people in various sorts of trainings and outreach programs,” said Hayostek, who serves as lead prevention educator for the Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Office, also known as Prevention at Pitt. “Sexual violence prevention is not a fun topic. We’ve been able to take some risks to make this work more accessible, such as with a Taylor Swift-themed event or a Beyonce-themed event, to encourage folks to join the conversation.”
Allies is a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that provides high-quality integrated medical care and supportive human services with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community. The group evolved from the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.
“The fact that it’s a community award means a lot to me, because I’m being recognized as someone who’s out and proud and doing good work,” Hayostek said. “Visibility is super important right now, especially given the climate that we’re in.”
Prior to being hired full-time in OEDI, Hayostek helped develop the Circle Up education and outreach program while completing his master’s degree at Pitt. Along with Carrie Benson, Pitt’s director of sexual violence prevention and education, Hayostek helped develop the Prevention at Pitt branding and is part of the rapid growth in outreach and education designed to reduce sexual harassment, intimate partner violence and sexual misconduct on the University’s campuses.
“I love our office, I love our team and I love that we can all show up as who we are,” Hayostek said. “I’m proud of how we’ve grown, both with student workers and our professional staff.”
In 2023, the Prevention at Pitt team was awarded $500,000 in a Pitt SEED grant from the Office of the Chancellor to expand the scope and depth of its work.
A licensed social worker since 2023, Hayostek earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative arts from Pennsylvania State University and previously worked in leadership, training and development roles in the retail industry. Hayostek’s areas of expertise include emotional intelligence and leadership; sexual orientation, gender identity and expression; LGBTQIA+ history and rights; psychiatric disabilities and mental health; fat justice and body inclusivity; and systematic racism.
The Allies’ Bright Young People awards recognize individuals who are making an impact in the community in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion through their professional work, art, or activism. Also honored at the May 3 event was Stavroula “Stavi” Xinos, a master’s degree candidate in Pitt’s School of Social Work.
— Jason Togyer, photography provided by Dev Hayostek
Jason Togyer wins two awards from Press Club of Western Pennsylvania
Jason Togyer, communications manager for Pitt's Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (OEDI), won two awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, including the Service to Journalism Award.
They were honored for their role as executive director, founder and editor of Tube City Community Media Inc., a volunteer-run nonprofit corporation that promotes conversations about the future of the McKeesport, Pennsylvania, area. The publication strives to highlight positive activities not being covered by other news media.
Togyer also won a Golden Quill award from the Press Club for reporting with the Tube City Almanac. Previously an associate editor of Pitt Magazine and senior editor of Pitt Med Magazine, Togyer has been with OEDI since 2022.
— Nick France
Tera Levin will study pathogenesis through a Burroughs Wellcome Fund program
Tera Levin, assistant professor of biological sciences, has been named a 2024 recipient of the Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) program from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
PATH provides assistant professors $500,000 over five years to study the points where the systems of humans and potentially infectious agents connect. The program intends to give recipients the freedom and flexibility to pursue new avenues of inquiry, stimulating higher-risk research projects that hold potential for significantly advancing our understanding of how infectious diseases work and how health is maintained.
Levin will use the funding in her research into how mechanisms of pathogenesis arise from environmental battlegrounds. Her lab researches the evolution of infectious diseases, seeking to understand how the evolutionary “arms races” between hosts and pathogens dynamically shapes the biology of immunity and pathogenesis.
Pitt–Bradford earns 14th consecutive Military Friendly designation
For the 14th consecutive year, Pitt-Bradford has received recognition for its support of active military and veteran students.
Viqtory Media has named the University's Bradford campus a gold level school for the 2024-25 academic year for embracing military students and their families and dedicating resources to ensure their success.
Now in its 14th year, the Military Friendly Schools list has come to set the standard for higher education institutions to give the best opportunities to veterans and their spouses. This prestigious list provides a comprehensive guide for veterans and their families using data sources from federal agencies and proprietary survey information from participating organizations.
The list of Military Friendly® Schools comes from an evaluation of both public data about the institutions and proprietary data gathered through a survey.
Final ratings were determined by combining the institution’s survey scores with the assessment of the institution’s ability to meet thresholds for retention, graduation, job placement, loan repayment, degree advancement or transfer, and loan default rates for all students and, specifically, for student veterans.
Find more information on the Pitt–Bradford website.
5 faculty win Pitt’s Health Sciences Ascending Star award
Five Pitt faculty members won the 2024 Health Sciences Ascending Star awards. Established in 2022, the honor recognizes highly productive and creative mid-career faculty in Pitt’s six schools of the health sciences.
"This Ascending Star Award is just one tangible way in which we can recognize the excellence of faculty members whose career trajectories continue to offer great promise and to encourage them to continue that upward momentum, while also serving as role models and mentors to their junior colleagues," said Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine.
Each recipient will receive $25,000 in research support and give a lecture at Pitt this year.
Meet the recipients
Mo Ebrahimkhani, associate professor in the Department of Pathology, leads the Laboratory for Synthetic Biology and Regenerative Medicine. There, his team studies how genetic engineering can advance research in biological systems and be leveraged for the development of novel regenerative technologies. Ebrahimkhani is also a member of the Division of Experimental Pathology and the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center.
Timothy Hand directs the Gnotobiotic Animal Core Laboratory, which studies how the immune system handles newly colonizing bacteria and has received more than $500,000 in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associate professor of pediatrics is also a Richard King Mellon Foundation scholar in the Institute for Pediatric Research.
Amy Hartman is an associate professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the School of Public Health. Her research goal is to understand how emerging mosquito-transmitted viruses like the Rift Valley fever virus cause disease. She and her team decipher the mechanisms of understudied disease outcomes to advance the development of vaccines and therapeutics.
Dara Méndez, associate director of Pitt's Public Health’s Center for Health Equity, has more than 20 years of experience in promoting racial and socioeconomic equity and justice in pregnancy, birth, and reproductive and women’s health. The associate professor of epidemiology leads research, practice and policy focused on structural and social determinants of health, particularly for Black populations.
Kenneth Urish is associate medical director at the Magee Bone and Joint Center, where his practice focuses on primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty, or joint replacement. He also directs of the NIH-funded Arthritis and Arthroplasty Design Laboratory, which studies early arthritis prevention and optimizing joint replacement outcomes.
Two Health Sciences researchers named 2023 AAAS Fellows
Two University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences faculty members have been elected 2023 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Deborah Polk, visiting associate professor of dental public health, School of Dental Medicine, and Bennett Van Houten, Richard M. Cyert Professor of Molecular Oncology and professor of pharmacology and chemical biology, School of Medicine, are among the 502 scientists, engineers and innovators recognized by AAAS for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.
A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS fellow is a lifetime honor. Distinguished past honorees include W.E.B. DuBois, Ellen Ochoa, Steven Chu, Grace Hopper, Alan Alda, Mae Jemison and Ayanna Howard. Polk and Van Houten join 214 fellows from the University of Pittsburgh who have received the prestigious award since its inception.
AAAS noted Polk’s “distinguished contributions in the fields of clinical psychology and oral health sciences, particularly in deepening our understanding of behavioral factors of patients and practitioners in improving oral health.” Polk, also a faculty member in the School of Public Health’s Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, and lab members evaluate the effectiveness of interventions designed to help providers follow guidelines.
AAAS honored Van Houten as a fellow for “outstanding contributions to the field of DNA damage and repair, particularly the development of several novel methods for understanding the choreography of the DNA repair processes.” Van Houten and his lab study the formation and repair of DNA damage in nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, paying particular interest to the structure and function of proteins that mediate nucleotide excision repair and the role of oxidative stress in human disease.
Team led by Stephen Chan receives American Heart Association award
Stephen Y. Chan, professor of medicine and director of Pitt’s Vascular Medicine Institute, will lead a University of Pittsburgh and Prairie View (Texas) A&M University research team as part of a $15 million award from the American Heart Association’s Strategically Focused Research Network on Inflammation in Cardiac and Neurovascular Disease.
Pitt joins with teams from Northwestern University Chicago Campus and the University of Michigan on the ambitious project to better understand the body’s response to inflammation and crosstalk between the heart and brain, as well as how to prevent or treat inflammation-driven cardiovascular diseases.
Chan’s team will conduct three different projects aimed at identifying and treating interrelated conditions of the brain and vascular pathology. They’ll also study cellular mechanisms that impact memory in hopes of developing new medications to boost brain function for people who have experienced a heart attack.
Read more in the AHA press release.
Bambha named fellow of Association for the Study of Liver Diseases
Pitt Medicine's Kiran Bambha has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). The association bestows the recognition upon members who have made a significant contribution to the knowledge and practice of liver and biliary diseases and are considered leaders in the field.
Bambha is a transplant hepatologist with a strong interest in liver transplantation, living donor liver transplantation, chronic liver diseases, liver transplant policy and allocation systems. She teaches in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in Pitt’s Department of Medicine.
AASLD fellows are committed to continued leadership and service to the hepatology community and supporting cultivation of the next generation of leaders.
New seminar series honors late chemical engineering professor Shiao-Hung Chiang
The legacy of Shiao-Hung Chiang, emeritus professor of chemical engineering, will endure through a newly named seminar series in the Swanson School’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.
The Shiao-Hung Chiang Seminar Series is funded through a gift from Chiang’s children — Annette, who conducts research in Pitt’s Department of Biological Sciences; Grace; and Justin. The newly endowed fund will “provide program support to bring outstanding researchers, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the field of chemical engineering to the Swanson School of Engineering community for an exchange of ideas.”
Chiang, who also was executive chair of the Pittsburgh Coal Conference from 1973-1999, was well published for his research in clean coal processes and earned several patents. He was a generous educator, researcher, and mentor according to Department Chair Steven Little, Distinguished Professor and William Kepler Whiteford Endowed Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.
Chiang died Dec. 14, 2022, at 94. See full story on the Swanson School website.
Emily Elliott selected as fellow of the Ecological Society of America
Emily Elliott, a professor of geology and environmental science in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, has been elected a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the organization announced April 30.
ESA, the world’s largest community of professional ecologists, awards the recognition to members who make “outstanding contributions” in applying or advancing ecological knowledge across academia, government and the nonprofit and private sectors.
Elliott, who also serves as the director of the Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water Research, Education and Outreach, which she co-founded, is one of nine academicians and scientists to receive the honor. Her research has advanced the use of stable isotopes to unravel nutrient dynamics in ecosystems; she also directs the Pitt Isotope Tracers Lab.
Elliott, along with the other awardees, will be formally recognized at an awards ceremony at ESA’s annual meeting this August in Long Beach, California.
2 Pitt Medicine faculty earn Gastroenterological Association mentor awards
Two University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine professors have been honored with American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute Council Section Research Mentor Awards.
Robert E. Schoen is a professor of medicine and epidemiology, with research interests in early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer. A primary investigator in numerous colorectal medical trials, he has worked with the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, Mayo Clinic, the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium, and more. Schoen received his award in the clinical practice section.
Dhiraj Yadav is a professor of medicine and vice chair for clinical research within the Department of Medicine. His research has focused on the epidemiology of pancreatic diseases, including the role of alcohol and tobacco; incidence, prevalence and hospitalizations; risk and burden of readmissions; and the natural history of pancreatitis. Yadav was awarded in the pancreatic disorders section.
The winners will be recognized at Digestive Disease Week in Washington, D.C., May 18-21.
Anthony Grace is among ScholarGPS’ Highly Ranked Scholars
Anthony A. Grace, distinguished professor of neuroscience in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, has been named a ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholar. The ranking recognizes scholars for exceptional performances across fields, disciplines and specialties.
Also a professor of psychiatry and psychology, Grace was recognized for his prolific publication record, the impact of his work and the quality of his scholarly contributions. These factors led to his placement in the top 0.05 percent of scholars worldwide.
Grace was named the No. 1 scholar in the field of dopaminergic pathways and was in the top five in the fields of dopamine, haloperidol, pathophysiology and neurons. He was also ranked 39th internationally in the field of psychology, as well as 85th in the social sciences.
Chandralekha Singh named Excellence in Graduate Physics Education Awardee
Chandralekha Singh, Distinguished Professor of Physics in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, was named as the 2024 John David Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Education Awardee by the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The award will be presented at the 2024 summer meeting of the association from July 6 to 10 in Boston. The John David Jackson Award for Excellence in Graduate Physics Education is presented to physicists and physics educators who, like John David Jackson after whom the award is named, have made outstanding contributions to curriculum development, mentorship, or classroom teaching in graduate physics education.
Singh’s pioneering research in the teaching and learning of quantum mechanics has played a significant role in advancing physics education research in advanced courses. In addition to educational research in advanced courses, she has conducted research on cognitive issues in learning physics, improving student problem solving and reasoning skills as well as improving equity and inclusion in physics learning environments.
Two Pitt alums are 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners
Two alumni from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences are among the 2024 winners of Pulitzer Prizes.
Brandon Som (A&S ’02G) earned this year’s Pulitzer Prize in poetry for “Tripas,” a collection of poems about his multicultural, multigenerational childhood home. The poems highlight the “dignity of his family’s working lives, creating community rather than conflict,” the Pulitzer Board wrote, and engage with his dual Mexican and Chinese heritage. The book was also a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry.
Som is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego. His first collection of poems, “The Tribute Horse,” won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award in 2015. He earned his MFA in poetry from Pitt and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California.
Brett Murphy (A&S ’13) is part of a team at the nonprofit news organization ProPublica, which won the Pulitzer in the public service category of journalism for a series of articles titled “Friends of the Court.” The series investigated how influential billionaires courted the favor of U.S. Supreme Court justices with gifts and travel. Their “groundbreaking and ambitious” reporting, the Pulitzer Board noted, prompted the court to adopt its first code of conduct.
A reporter at ProPublica since 2022, Murphy previously worked as an investigative reporter at USA Today, where he was a finalist for a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for stories on labor abuses in California’s port trucking industry. Murphy earned his BA in nonfiction writing at Pitt and then went on to earn his master’s in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.
2 Pitt faculty are on the New Pittsburgh Courier’s 40 under 40 list
The New Pittsburgh Courier has honored two University of Pittsburgh faculty members in the 2024 FAB 40 Under 40 list. Brooke Rawls, assistant professor in the School of Social Work, and Lawrence Uradu, assistant professor of radiology in the School of Medicine, are both members of this year’s class of young African American professionals in Greater Pittsburgh.
Rawls, who also serves as academic coordinator for the Child Welfare Education for Baccalaureates (CWEB) program, has been at Pitt since 2021. Her professional experience includes casework at a county child welfare agency, medical social work, nursing home services, grief and loss support, and individual and couples counseling. Rawls’ CWEB program, of which she is herself a graduate, gives students the chance to experience internships in one of the commonwealth’s 67 child welfare agencies, then complete their training in Mechanicsburg at the Child Welfare Resource Center, which is overseen by Pitt personnel.
Uradu has been at Pitt since 2018. A specialist in diagnostic radiology, he received his MD at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. The Nigerian native is passionate about increasing diversity and representation in medicine, which he’s pursued since his time as a medical student, when he stared a program to introduce underrepresented undergraduate students to careers in medicine.
Doreen Hernández, Belkys Torres inaugural recipients of Commitment to Community Award
Doreen Hernández and Belkys Torres were recently announced as the inaugural recipients of the Michele Reid-Vazquez Commitment to Community Award from the Center for Ethnic Studies Research (CESR).
The award is the namesake of Reid-Vazquez, a former associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies who was also the faculty advisor for the Latinx Student Association and the founding director of the CESR. A place where “access and opportunity connect,” the center provides students and faculty with community-building spaces and opportunities through collaborative research, professional development and investigative projects. Each explores race and ethnicity within communities central to ethnic studies, including the diasporas of Latinx, Asian American, Indigenous and African American/U.S. African diasporas peoples.
In an announcement about the awards, professional soprano opera singer and CESR co-director Zuly Inirio (SOC WK ’23G) described Reid-Vazquez as: “a beacon of light for those navigating the complexities of identity, culture and community.” She added that her “work and unwavering dedication have not only paved the way for countless scholars and activists but have also significantly contributed to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the diverse tapestries that constitute our societies.”
Recipients of the award must exemplify an unwavering commitment to community, truth and building an equitable future for all. Hernández and Torres have displayed these virtues in their respective roles at Pitt and in their efforts to develop Latinx programming at the University and across colleges in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Hernández is the administrator for Pitt’s Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership and Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Torres, a teaching assistant professor of Latinx and gender studies in the English Department, is also the associate vice provost for inclusive excellence in education. In the latter position, she focuses on increasing educational equity for students most often impacted by structural barriers.
Yvonne Brewster Way honored with the Guard and Reserve Patriot Award
Yvonne Brewster Way, director of finance & academic operations for the School of Medicine's Department of Surgery, has received the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Patriot Award.
The Patriot Award reflects the efforts made to support citizen warriors through a wide-range of measures including flexible schedules, time off prior to and after deployment, caring for families, and granting leaves of absence if needed.