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inequities in health and health care. A professor of clinical family medicine who serves as assistant dean for clinical affairs, outpatient in the COM Chicago, Figueroa has developed innovative programs to help learners better understand how to care for vulnerable populations. A faculty member at the COM since 2005, she practices traditional family medicine, caring for patients of all ages, and she has additional expertise in women's health and maternity care. MICHEL EARNS FULBRIGHT, WILL COLLABORATE WITH CRISTANCHO Joanna Michel, PhD '06, instructor of medical education at the COM Chicago and associate director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Urban Medicine Program, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to study how women displaced from rural to urban areas in Medellin, Colombia, use medicinal and nutritional plants in their health care practices. Also an affiliate professor in the UIC School of Public Health, Michel is one of 800 faculty and professionals who are traveling abroad during the 2017- 2018 academic year through the program, the flagship international educational exchange sponsored by the U.S. government. Her four-month research project is a collaboration with Sergio Cristancho, PhD, assistant professor at the COM Rockford and professor of public health at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin. The project will center on how dramatic migration to urban areas caused by ongoing armed conflict in Colombia has changed women's use of plants for medicinal and nutritional purposes. LEOW CO-LEADS WINNING MOOD DISORDER RESEARCH TEAM Alex Leow, MD, PhD, an associate professor of both psychiatry and bioengineering, has co-led a team of researchers that has won the Mood Challenge for ResearchKit. That's a contest launched by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to come up with new ways to study mood disorders using Apple's ResearchKit, an open- source platform for creating iOS apps. The team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, also co-led by Peter Nelson, PhD, professor of computer science and dean of the College of Engineering, along with collaborators at the University of Michigan and Sage Bionetworks, developed a mobile app called BiAffect. The app unobtrusively monitors device usage, including keyboard dynamics such as typing speed, to predict manic and depressive episodes in people with bipolar disorder. The BiAffect team will receive the $200,000 grand prize to continue to refine and launch its app in the App Store. "The vision for BiAffect is for it to serve as a kind of 'fitness tracker' for the brain," Leow says. "The Mood Challenge helped us to realize this vision, and the finished app will be a first-of-its-kind tool for researchers to study mood disorders and even cognitive disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease." BiAffect also will help researchers determine the efficacy of different treatments for bipolar and other mood disorders. I L L I N O I S M E D I C I N E | 11 HOLTERMAN EARNS INNOVATIVE RESEARCH AWARD Mark Holterman, MD, PhD, a professor of surgery and pediatrics at the COM Peoria, has earned an Innovative Research Award from the American Diabetes Association for groundbreaking research conducted through the Core Research Program. Previously honored with the same award from ADA, Holterman has spent more than 20 years as a practitioner at OSF St. Francis Medical Center. The American Diabetes Association has supported more than 5,000 research initiatives in the field of diabetes over the past 60 years, funding research work in diabetes etiology and addressing the challenges faced by researchers in studies that use humans as research subjects. A specialist in pediatric surgery, Holterman's research interests include novel cancer treatment, stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine. He earned his MD and PhD from University of Virginia and undertook a fellowship in pediatric surgery at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital. Holterman previously worked at Rush University Medical Center as an attending pediatric surgeon. RIFKIN NAMED CHAIR OF MEDICINE IN ROCKFORD Gary Rifkin, MD, has been named chair of the department of medicine at the College of Medicine Rockford. A professor of clinical medicine and infectious diseases, Rifkin joined the faculty of the COM in 1978 and has served in various roles in teaching, administration and clinical practice, including the vice chair and acting chair for the department of medicine. Rifkin has won several university awards, including three Golden Apple Teaching Awards, the Distinguished Service Award, Distinguished Teaching Award and two Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards. A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Rifkin completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and an infectious disease fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical Center. He is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He maintained a clinical practice with Rockford Infectious Disease Consultants and served as physician epidemiologist at several area medical centers from 1978 until 2012. Mark Holterman Gary Rifkin Alex Leow Joanna Michel Evelyn Figueroa