Awards and Recognition

Ramla Kasozi, a third-year family medicine resident at the University of Minnesota Medical School, will serve as the newly elected Resident Director of Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians. Kasozi will serves as the first Muslim-elect Resident Director of MAFP and hopes to address health disparities by promoting research and creating resources for doctors and patients of color.

Multiple U of M faculty are mentioned in Mpls St. Paul Magazine’s ‘Top Doctors Special Report: Pivoting in a Pandemic’; Erika Lee writes in the Washington Post that Americans are the dangerous, disease-carrying foreigners now; Julia Ponder spoke with KARE 11 about inviting a raptor to your Zoom meeting; Traci Mann spoke with Womens Health Mag about the Noom diet and whether it’s worth your time; Craig Hedberg is quoted in the Wall Street Journal about being safe during food shopping and outdoor dining during coronavirus; Patricia Frazier and Ann Masten are quoted in a Star Tribune story about how to weather the pandemic; Yoji Shimizu, Mylene Culbreath, Noro Andriamanalina, Ellen Longmire, and Char Voight are quoted in a Minnesota Daily story about a new learning initiative for faculty fighting racism; Mark Schleiss is quoted in a New York Times story about what keeps most little kids from getting COVID-19; Aaron Sojourner is quoted in the Financial Times about whether the rebound in America's economy already over; Samuel Myers Jr. is quoted in a Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal story that asks whether PPP shut out minority entrepreneurs; Stephanie Carlson spoke to the New York Times about how play energizes your kid’s brain.

The National Institutes on Drug Abuse has awarded the University of Minnesota $9.9 million to establish the Center for Neural Circuits in Addiction. An interdisciplinary team of University faculty, students, and staff will create tools to transform researchers’ ability to discover how the brain changes with addiction at the Center, as well as raise awareness of the biological basis of addiction.

University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers announced today that they are part of a team of researchers from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology who have received a five-year, $20 million grant from the NSF Division of Chemistry. The grant will allow continued research on evaluating the molecular-level impact of nanotechnology on the environment and living things. The center was initially funded in 2012.

The Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) at the University of Minnesota has named Rhonda Franklin and Chris Pennell as the inaugural recipients of the IEM Abbott Professorships in Innovative Education. The Abbott Professorships will be awarded to the faculty co-directors of the IEM Inspire Program to advance IEM’s mission to inspire eighth grade through junior college students towards future STEM careers in biomedicine and healthcare delivery.

In June 2020, Rachel Hardeman, associate professor in the School of Public Health Division of Health Policy and Management, became the first Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation is committed to advancing health equity and working to ensure that all people have the support and resources needed to reach their full health potential. The foundation believes that endowing a professorship specifically focused on ending racial and health inequities is a critical component of this effort and an important evolution in its partnership with the School of Public Health.

The University of Minnesota has received a $1 million philanthropic investment from the Otto Bremer Trust to establish mobile healthcare services in communities that lack access to medical care because of COVID-19, civil unrest related to racial injustice as well as economic and other factors. Initially, the program will be based at the Broadway Family Medicine Clinic in North Minneapolis and the Community-University Health Care Center (CUHCC) in South Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood, with geographical expansion to come over the next several months. The mobile health initiative brings together U of M health professionals from dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, medicine and veterinary medicine to provide a range of services. The overarching goal is to address healthcare disparities occurring in neighborhoods that are segregated and have inadequate access to community facilities because of long-standing racial and social injustices.

The University of Minnesota has welcomed Damien A. Fair, as the Redleaf Endowed Director of the University’s Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain. Fair has extensive research expertise in brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience, and is renowned for his collaborative and engaging leadership. He will also be a professor in the Institute of Child Development in CEHD and in the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical School.

The National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education has appointed Christine Arenson as co-director of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. Arenson joins Barbara Brandt, the National Center’s founding director, in strengthening its commitment to collaborative practice and interprofessional clinical learning through leadership for research, evidence and resources.

Clinical Professor Mary Benbenek was selected to become a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Fellows are recognized nurse practitioner leaders who have made outstanding contributions to nurse practitioner education, policy, clinical practice or research, and are dedicated to the global advancement of nurse practitioners and the high-quality health care they deliver. Benbenek is a nurse practitioner educator and family nurse practitioner.