Awards and Recognition

Two University of Minnesota Medical School faculty received 2021 Upper Midwest Regional Emmys presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Science for their respective shows. Both of the shows were created to provide public health education on the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Raymond Christensen, an associate professor of Family Medicine and BioBehavioral Health, has been recognized for his participation in the “COVID-19 Vaccines: Finding Answers” special produced by WDSE in February 2021. Dr. Christensen has been partnering with WDSE for several years through a program called “Doctors on Call.” The program features a weekly physician panel discussion answering viewer questions. 

Note: Jon Hallberg also received an Emmy and was recognized in the Oct. 13 issue of Brief. 

An estimated 450,000 to 500,000 people in Minnesota struggle with substance use disorders, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. To try to combat this social issue, the Center for Neural Circuits in Addictions at the University of Minnesota Medical School was established in 2020. Director Mark Thomas, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and director of the Medical Discovery Team on Addiction, and his team recently earned a supplemental grant of $100,000 from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse for further research into neurostimulation as a potential treatment for addiction.

Marla Spivak is quoted in a Washington Post story about COP26; Frank Douma is quoted in a KSTP-TV story about what the newly approved infrastructure bill could mean to Minnesota; Beth Lewis is quoted in the Casper Star-Tribune story, “How to enjoy working out if you hate exercise”; Job Ubbink is quoted in the US News & World Report story, “How to Become a Food Scientist and Why”; Mary Owen is quoted in the New York Times about the COVID virus surging on the Navajo Nation, despite high vaccination rates; April Wilhelm is quoted in the Star Tribune about a drop in youth tobacco use among Minnesota cities that raised the purchase age; Alfred Marcus is interviewed in Marketplace about why the labor shortage may go on for much longer; Forrest Fleischman is quoted in The Nation story, "How Bezos’ latest plan to protect forests could backfire."

The University of Minnesota is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) program to study a rare type of cells, called “senescent” cells, that play both positive and negative roles in biological processes. The U of M Medical School and the College of Biological Sciences have received $8.5M to expand on their work studying non-dividing cells that increase with age. As 1 of 16 sites in the NIH Common Fund’s Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet) program, U of M researchers—spanning 10 departments—will study how senescent cells accumulate and damage or heal neighboring tissue during normal human aging.

Associate Professor Rachel Hardeman, Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity and director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, has accepted an invitation to join the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 14-member ACD, as authorized by federal law, is being re-established. The panel advises the CDC director, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Assistant Secretary for Health on policy and broad strategies that will enable CDC to fulfill its mission of protecting the nation’s health. It specifically recommends ways to prioritize CDC’s activities, improve results, and address health disparities.

Gabe Chan is interviewed on Morning Edition about a new climate change lecture series; Pauline Boss is quoted in The Atlantic story, "The Pandemic Is Still Making Us Feel Terrible"; Damien Fair is interviewed at MPR News about the new Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain; Heidi Roop is interviewed at WCCO about the impact of climate change on Minnesota; Wisconsin leads the nation in imprisonment rates of Black people, with comments from Chris Uggen at NBC News; Valerie Tiberius is quoted in the Star Tribune story, “Make yourself happy by reminding yourself you're going to die”; Ryan Demmer is quoted at CBS about the link between political affiliation of governors and Covid infection, death rates; Tom Gable and Austin Homkes are quoted in the Vet Candy story, “Wolves alter wetland creation and recolonization by killing ecosystem engineers”; Alejandro Baer and Joachim Savelsberg are quoted in a Star Tribune story about why Minnesotans are still talking about the Halloween Blizzard of 1991; Joe Soss and Joshua Page are mentioned in Science about the "financialization" of the criminal justice system.

The Udall Center at the University of Minnesota Medical School was awarded a new $11.3 million grant from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke to continue its work in deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease. The Morris K. Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research were established by Congress in 1998 as part of a program to honor the late representative from Arizona. Now receiving this grant for the second time, this Udall Center joins a short list of five other national sites funded to study Parkinson’s disease from the molecular level all the way into patient treatments.

The University of Minnesota Medical School recently received funding to be the prime site for a spinal cord injury Center for Excellence through an interdisciplinary team in the upper Midwest. The grant — Minnesota Spinal Cord Injury Model System (MN SCIMS) — aims to provide a multidisciplinary continuum of clinical care for people with spinal cord injuries (SCI), which will also be used to base and expand research on SCI. Aligning with the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehab Research, MN SCIMS is one of 14 recipients in the U.S. that received $2.2 million over five years to research SCI and educate local physicians on their findings.

Andrew Adams is quoted in a Washington Post story about pig-to-human transplants; Aaron Sojourner is quoted in the CNBC story, “6 reasons why Americans aren’t returning to work; Dave Nicolai is interviewed in a WCCO story about Minnesota’s crop yields being better than expected this year; Mary Owen is quoted in an MPR News story about a rise in COVID cases among Indigenous communities; David Bedford is mentioned in The Scholarly Kitchen regarding apples and how intellectual property rights make them taste better; Jenny Liu is quoted in a Glamour story about hair loss among men and women; Le (Betty) Zhou is interviewed in the MPR News story, “The cost of a bad boss”; Michael Osterholm is quoted in the Wall Street Journal about some workers wanting to use Covid-19 recovery as evidence of immunity; Tom Fisher is quoted in Minnesota Reformer about a self-driving car in Rochester; M.J. Gilbert is quoted in the Public News Service story, “MN School Staff Feeling Weight of Pandemic.”

For the sixth consecutive year, the University of Minnesota School of Nursing received the Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine. The school was one of only 13 nursing schools to receive the HEED Award, which honors U.S. nursing, medical, dental, pharmacy, osteopathic, veterinary, and other health schools and centers that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The inclusion and diversity work being done in the School of Nursing that is transformational and collaborative was noted as evidence of commitment to health equity education. The school’s focus on anti-racism and health equity as part of its Doctor of Nursing Practice Enhancement and Enrichment Programming contributed to its selection. Also recognized was the school’s search and selection strategies to increase faculty diversity and create a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for newly hired faculty and staff; inclusion of questions directly related to diversity, anti-racism, and equity in interviews with student applicants; and the elimination of the GRE requirement in the Master of Nursing, DNP, and PhD program application.