Illinois Medicine

AZAR RESIGNS AS EXECUTIVE DEAN; RAY BECOMES INTERIM DEAN Dimitri Azar, MD, MBA, stepped down as executive dean of the College of Medicine on March 15, and Charles Ray, MD, PhD, MS— acting dean since Azar took a leave of absence in July 2017— was named interim dean. The College dean since 2011, Azar will continue as senior director of ophthalmologic innovation at Verily Life Sciences while remaining on the COM faculty on a part-time basis as professor of ophthalmology, bioengineering and pharmacology, as well as B.A. Field Chair in Ophthalmologic Research. An internationally recognized ophthalmic surgeon, Azar joined the COM in 2006 as head of the department of ophthalmology & visual sciences. During his tenure as dean, the College made significant advances across all of its campuses in areas like learner- centered education, clinically relevant translational research and high-quality patient care. Previously, Azar served as a tenured professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, director of the Cornea Service at Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, senior scientist at Schepens Eye Institute, and a faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Before Ray became acting dean, he served as head of the department of radiology at the COM for more than four years, and he is an accomplished clinician and researcher with more than 18 years of administrative experience. A pioneer in translational research focusing on oncologic interventions and pain management, Ray served as president of the Society of Interventional Radiology from 2016 -17 and has been on the executive council of the society for 12 years. DAVIS WINS LIEBER PRIZE FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA RESEARCH John Davis, MD, Gilman Professor of Psychiatry and Research in the COM, has won the Lieber Prize in Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. A giant in the field, Davis and his colleagues introduced the notion that major mental illness may be caused by biochemical abnormalities, and his group was among the first to study the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of psychotropic drugs. Davis also helped develop the statistical method known as meta- analysis as a way to pool scientific data; his group published the second meta-analysis overall and the first in the field of psychiatry. The results indicated that patients with schizophrenia were less likely to have relapses if they took their anti-psychotic medications for the long term, a concept now well known as maintenance therapy. Currently, Davis is studying gene expression abnormalities in schizophrenia and conducts clinical trials addressing the disease. MAKI RECOGNIZED WITH AMWA WOMAN IN SCIENCE AWARD Pauline Maki, PhD, senior research director of the Center for Research on Women and Gender at the COM Chicago, has received the Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women's Association. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on menopause, sex steroids, and the founder of the International School of Robotic Surgery, which since 2003 has trained more than 750 surgeons from 24 countries. ALTER RECEIVES SEE HUMANITARIAN OF THE YEAR AWARD Daniel Alter, MD '92, PhD '93, has received a 2017 Humanitarian of the Year Award from SEE International, in honor of World Sight Day, and to recognize the outstanding dedication and achievement of volunteer ophthalmologists committed to ending avoidable blindness worldwide. Alter has traveled to Haiti 12 times over the past two years to assist citizens of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one that has been devastated by natural disasters over the past decade. The country's public health care system has suffered as a result, and access to basic vision care is extremely limited, yet Haiti has the highest prevalence of blindness in Latin America and the Caribbean. With a practice in Des Plaines, Illinois, for more than 20 years, Alter has affiliations at both Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Amita Health Elk Grove Village. He interned at MacNeal Hospital, did residency at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, and returned to the COM for fellowship. FIGUEROA WINS HMPRG HEALTH & MEDICINE AWARD Evelyn Figueroa, MD '99, has won a 2017 HMPRG Award from Health & Medicine Policy Research Group for her service as a leader in policy, public health, medicine, research, and advocacy whose work exemplifies Health & Medicine's mission to promote social justice and challenge cognition and mood. Maki's studies have identified female-related risk factors for brain aging and dementia in healthy women and women living with HIV. She is past president of the North American Menopause Society, chair of the Society for Women's Health Research Interdisciplinary Network on Alzheimer's Disease, and immediate past head of the Neurocognitive Working Group of the Women's Interagency HIV Study. Maki has won numerous NIH awards for her research and service. She serves as a research and career mentor to myriad students and junior faculty, sits on executive committees for several women's health advisory boards, and appears frequently as an international and national speaker on menopause and women's cognitive and mental health. Maki received her PhD from the University of Minnesota and postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the National Institute on Aging. GIULIANOTTI APPOINTED VISITING PROFESSOR AT CHINESE UNIVERSITY Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti, MD, a pioneer and world-renowned surgeon in robotic-assisted surgery, has been appointed as a visiting professor at Guangxi Medical University in China for a three-year term. The university recognized his professional achievements and also wished to promote mutual exchange in medical education, research and training. Chief of the division of general, minimally invasive, and robotic surgery at UI Health, Giulianotti was the first surgeon in the world to perform a significant series of complex robotic procedures and has personally performed more than 2,000 robot-assisted surgeries. Giulianotti, who also serves as Lloyd Nyhus Chair in Minimally-Invasive and Robotic Surgery, is the director of the Robotic Clinical Fellowship Program 10 | S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 faculty news The latest accomplishments of our distinguished faculty John Davis Pauline Maki Dimitri Azar Pier Giulianotti Daniel Alter

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