Distinguished Graduate Award

Established in 1982, the Distinguished Graduate Award is the highest honor bestowed upon graduates of the Perelman School of Medicine. It pays tribute to highly accomplished alumni for outstanding service to the medical profession and to society at-large. The award celebrates the graduate’s notable achievement — in either biomedical research, clinical practice, or medical education — which has already garnered national or international acclaim. An esteemed panel comprised of physicians from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, previous honorees, and others selects the recipient. All graduates of the Perelman School of Medicine are eligible for nomination for this award, which is presented annually during Medical Alumni Weekend.


Past Recipients


20242023 |  2022 | 2021 | 20202019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014


1982
Howard A. Rusk, M.D.’25
1983
Elizabeth K. Rose, M.D.’26
Edward Rose, M.D.’21
1984
Carl F. Schmidt, M.D.’18
1985
Michael S. Brown, M.D.’66
Seymour S. Kety, M.D.’40
1986
Stanley N. Cohen, M.D.’60
Eugene M. Landis, M.D.’26
1987
Louis Sokoloff, M.D.’46
Francis C. Wood, M.D.’26
1988
David E. Kuhl, M.D.’55
Truman G. Schnabel, Jr., M.D.’43D
1989
Christian J. Lambertsen, M.D.’43A
John T. Potts, M.D.’57
1990
Gerald M. Edelman, M.D.’54, Ph.D.
Frank A. Oski, M.D.’58
1991
Maria Iandolo New, M.D.’54
Stanley B. Pruisner, M.D.’68
1992
Leon Eisenberg, M.D. ’46
Peter C. Nowell, M.D.’52
1993
Jonathan E. Rhoads, M.D., GME’40
Harold M. Weintraub, M.D.’74, Ph.D.’71
1994
C. Everett Koop, M.D., GME’47
Darwin J. Prockop, M.D.’56, Ph.D.
1995
Robert E. Forster II, M.D.’43D
James E. Eckenhoff, M.D.’41
1996
Robert A. Fishman, M.D.’47
James D. Hardy, M.D.’42
1997
Jerome H. Grossman, M.D.’65
Juan M. Taveras, M.D.’49
1998
Albert M. Kligman, M.D.’47, Ph.D.’42
Clyde F. Barker, M.D., GME’59
1999
Herbert L. Needleman, M.D.’52
Matthew D. Davis, M.D.’50
2000
Joseph H. Burchenal, M.D.’37
Robert L. Barchi, M.D.’72, Ph.D.’72
2001
Daniel Albert, M.D.’62
Edward Holmes, M.D.’67
2002
John M. Eisenberg, M.D., M.B.A.’76, GME’77
Robert W. Miller, M.D.’46
James C. Thompson, M.D., GME’59
2003
H. Frank Bunn, M.D.’61
Robert B. Daroff, M.D.’61
2004
Selma E. Snyderman, M.D.’40
Edward J. Stemmler, M.D.’60
2005
Carl Brighton, M.D.’57
Jerome Strauss, M.D.’74 , Ph.D.’74
2006
Theodore Friedmann, M.D.’60
Helene Gayle, M.D.’81
John Christian Reed, M.D.’86, Ph.D.’86
2007
Stanley Dudrick, M’61, GME’67
Stanley Plotkin, GME’63
2008
Dennis A. Ausiello, M.D.‘71
Walter J. Gamble, M.D.‘57
Craig B. Thompson, M.D.‘77
2009
Mark T. Groudine, M.D.‘74, Ph.D.‘74
Nicole Lurie, M.D.‘79
2010
Ann Arvin, M.D.’72
Robert I. Grossman, M.D.’73
2011
Elaine S. Jaffe, M.D.’69
Sidney Pestka, M.D.’61 
2012
David A. Asch, GM'87, WG'89, HOM'96
William S. Pierce, M'62, RES'69
2013
Richard H. Goodman, M.D.’76, Ph.D.’76
Jeannie T. Lee, M.D.’93, Ph.D.’93
2014
William A. Eaton, C’59, M’64, GR’67
Alan J. Wein, M’66, INT’70
2015
Patricia A. Gabow, M’69, INT’73
Robert M. Wachter, C’79, M’83
2016
William E. Bunney, M’56
Joseph Loscalzo, C’72, GR’76, M’78
2017
Peter J. Jannetta, C’53, M’57, INT’64
Frederick S. Kaplan, GM'81
2018
Richard Besser, M'86
Karl Rickels, FEL'57
2019
J. Sanford Schwartz, M’74, RES'77
Rajiv Shah, M’02, GRW’05
2020
Leonard Hayflick, C’51, G’53, GR’56
Gregg L. Semenza, M’82, GR’84
2021
Vanessa Northington Gamble, M'78, G'84, GR'87
Rita F. Redberg, M'81
2022
Alan R. Cohen, M'72, INT'76
James S. Forrester, M'63, RES'67
2023
Katrina A. Armstrong, MD, GM’98
Daniel R. Weinberger, M’73
2024
Lainie Friedman Ross, M'86, PhD
Ravi Ishwar Thadhani, M'91
Sankey V. Williams, MD, RES'77


2024 Recipients


Lainie Friedman Ross, M'86, PhD


Lainie Friedman Ross, M’86, PhD, a pediatrician and philosopher, is the Dean’s Professor and inaugural Chair of the Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics, the Director of the Paul M Schyve, MD Center for Bioethics, and holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Pediatrics and Philosophy at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Prior to joining the University of Rochester in 2023, Dr. Ross spent 28 years at the University of Chicago where she was the Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum Professor of Clinical Ethics, Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, Surgery and The College, co-director of the Institute for Translational Medicine, and Associate Director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. 


Dr. Ross’ research portfolio addresses ethical and policy issues in organ and tissue transplantation, pediatrics, genetics, research ethics, and health care disparities. She and colleagues proposed the idea of kidney paired exchanges between incompatible donor-recipient pairs, which then evolved into kidney chains and now accounts for over 1,000 lives saved annually. She co-authored two seminal textbooks on deceased donor and living donor organ transplantation (with Robert M. Veatch, PhD, and J. Richard Thistlethwaite MD, PhD, respectively). In pediatrics, Dr. Ross challenged the “best interest of the child” standard as the appropriate guidance for intimate families. Her model of constrained parental autonomy, published by Oxford University Press, provides a moral approach to the triadic pediatric relationship (doctor, patient, and parents). 

Most of Dr. Ross’ attention toward genetics has been focused on newborn screening policies; in research ethics, she has served on the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP), the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), and numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) Data Safety Monitoring committees. Dr. Ross’ work in disparities has explored and proposed solutions to the over-representation of women as living organ donors, the under-representation of women and Blacks as organ recipients, and the racial and ethnic disparities caused by different genetic screening methodologies and policies.

Dr. Ross is a graduate of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (AB), the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (MD), and Yale University (MPhil and PhD in Philosophy). She trained in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian. She is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She and her husband, John Ross, have two children.
 

Ravi Ishwar Thadhani, M'91


Ravi Ishwar Thadhani, M’91, MPH, is the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs (EVPHA) of Emory University, Executive Director of Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC), and Vice Chair of the Emory Healthcare Board of Directors. The Woodruff Health Sciences Center includes Emory’s schools of medicine, public health and nursing; Winship Cancer Institute; Emory National Primate Research Center; Emory Global Health Institute; Goizueta Institute @ Emory Brain Health; Emory Global Diabetes Research Center; and Emory Healthcare. Emory Healthcare, with more than 24,000 employees, 11 hospital campuses and 425 locations, is the most comprehensive academic health system in Georgia.

Dr. Thadhani oversees Emory’s renowned academic health sciences enterprise, focused on advancing research, training, and health-care delivery innovation. As vice chair of the Emory Healthcare board, he provides guidance for Emory Healthcare’s CEO and leadership team, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered care focused on supporting the health and well-being of patients around the state. 

Dr. Thadhani most recently served as chief academic officer and dean for faculty affairs for Mass General Brigham and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts. As a member of the executive leadership team, he oversaw graduate medical education, professional development, and a $2.3 billion research enterprise. Previously, Dr. Thadhani served as vice dean of research and graduate research education at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles (2017- 2019), associate director of research at Mass General Brigham (2012-2017), and chief of nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital (2013-2017).

With more than 30 years as a general and specialized internal medicine physician, Dr. Thadhani has extensive experience in patient care, research, and clinical trials. He led a successful research lab with continuous federal funding for more than 25 years, with a focus on kidney disease and developing diagnostics and therapeutics for patients with preeclampsia. He and his colleagues developed the first FDA approved test for preeclampsia (May 2023), and he is now working on a therapy for this devastating condition. He is the author or co-author of more than 300 scientific manuscripts and has published in top-tier journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and Journal of the American Medical Association.

A recipient of several distinguished national awards, Dr. Thadhani has been inducted into a number of honor societies, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, American Epidemiological Society, and the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He has an extensive track record of recruiting and mentoring women and underrepresented staff, trainees, and faculty, and has been honored with the Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award from Harvard Medical School, the Alumni Award of Merit from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the John P. Peters Award from the American Society of Nephrology.

Dr. Thadhani received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. At Penn, he was awarded the Nathan and Paulin Pincus Prize for Outstanding Achievement as a Clinician and the Alfred Stengel MD Memorial Prize for Academic Excellence in Academic Medicine, and he was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha in 1990. Dr. Thadhani earned a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and he also completed the LEAD Innovation Certificate Program in 2020 at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
 

Sankey V. Williams, MD, RES'77


Sankey Williams, MD, RES’77, is Professor Emeritus of General Internal Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and of Health Care Management in The Wharton School. He was Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine from 1992 to 2008 and directed the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program from 1988 to 1996. He is Deputy Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Williams has published more than 60 original articles that describe his work as a health services researcher, which has concentrated on physicians’ decisions to use clinical resources, often regarding the use of diagnostic tests. His work also has focused on patient classification systems used by researchers to adjust outcomes for severity of illness.

Dr. Williams he has given invited lectures to numerous professional and scientific audiences here and abroad and received many accolades for his research. He has held various leadership positions, including Commissioner of the U.S. Congress’s Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, which advised Congress about changes in Medicare payments to hospitals. He also has had leadership roles as President of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, President of The Society for Medical Decision Making, and in the Society of General Internal Medicine, including Editor of the Journal of General Internal Medicine (1995, 1999), President of the Society (2000, 2001), and recipient of the Society’s 2008 Robert J. Glaser Award for exceptional contributions in education and research.


2023 Recipients


Katrina A. Armstrong, MD, GM’98


Katrina A. Armstrong, MD, GM’98, leads Columbia University’s medical campus as the Chief Executive Officer of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, which includes the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons — the nation’s second oldest medical school and the first to award an MD degree — the School of Nursing, the College of Dental Medicine, and the Mailman School of Public Health. She also is Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences for Columbia University and Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Trained as an epidemiologist, she is an internationally recognized investigator in health disparities, quality of care, and cancer prevention and outcomes; an award-winning teacher; and a practicing general internist. She has served on multiple advisory panels for academic and federal organizations and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Before joining Columbia, Dr. Armstrong was the Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Prior to that, she was Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine, Associate Director of the Abramson Cancer Center, and Co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Yale University (BA degree in architecture), The Johns Hopkins University (MD degree), and the University of Pennsylvania (MS degree in clinical epidemiology). She completed her residency training in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins.


Daniel R. Weinberger, M’73


Daniel R. Weinberger, M’73, is Director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Maltz Research Laboratories, and Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, Neuroscience and Genetic Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was formally Director of the Genes, Cognition, and Psychosis Program of the Division of Intramural Research Programs at National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Weinberger has been instrumental in focusing research on the role of abnormal brain development as a risk factor for schizophrenia; identified a number of specific neural and molecular mechanisms of genetic risk for schizophrenia; and uncovered genetic effects that account for variation in specific human cognitive functions and in human temperament. His recent work has focused on genetic and epigenetic regulation of expression in the human brain of genes associated with developmental brain disorders. In 2003, Science magazine highlighted the genetic research of his lab as the second biggest scientific breakthrough of the year, second to the discovery of the origins of the cosmos.

He is the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the National Academy of Medicine, The International Prize for Translational Neuroscience of the Gertrud Reemtsma Foundation from the Max Planck Society, a National Institutes of Health Director’s Award, the Roche/Nature Medicine Prize for Translational Neuroscience, a William K. Warren Medical Research Center award, the Adolf Meyer Award and Foundation’s Fund Prize from the American Psychiatric Association, and the Lieber Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. He is past president of the Society of Biological Psychiatry as well as the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Weinberger attended college at Johns Hopkins and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania; he did a residency in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and neurology at The George Washington University. He is board certified in both psychiatry and neurology.





2022 Recipients


Alan R. Cohen, M’72, INT’76


Alan R. Cohen, M’72, INT’76, is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine. Beginning in 2001, he served 12 years as the Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Endowed Chair in Pediatrics, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and Physician-in-Chief at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He then became Medical Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer and co-director of the Patient and Family Experience at CHOP, and he currently continues his clinical activities in the Division of Hematology.

 Dr. Cohen’s research interests have focused on thalassemia, sickle cell disease, and transfusional iron overload. He has developed novel approaches to transfusion therapy and led clinical trials of the currently licensed iron chelators. Among his more than 100 publications are original papers in The New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, The Lancet, the British Journal of Haematology, and the Journal of Pediatrics. He has been co-editor of the international guidelines for the management of thalassemia and held research and institutional training grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Cohen has served as Chair of the Sub-Board of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Pediatrics; President of the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs and the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology; and Chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation and the Seventh Cooley’s Anemia Symposium of the New York Academy of Sciences. He was also editor of the subsequent volume of the Academy’s Annals.

 After earning his BA from Harvard College and MD from Penn in 1972, Dr. Cohen completed his internship, residency, and hematology-oncology fellowship at CHOP; he was Chief Resident from 1974 to 1975. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Penn in 1978 and promoted to Associate Professor in 1984 and full Professor in 1990. Prior to serving as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, he was Chief of the Division of Hematology.

James S. Forrester, M'63, RES'67


James S. Forrester, M’63, RES’67, is Emeritus Professor and former Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai, as well as Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Forrester led the development of hemodynamic monitoring using the Swan-Ganz catheter and the Forrester classification of hemodynamic subsets of acute myocardial infarction. He and George Diamond, MD, led the development the Diamond-Forrester method of probability analysis in coronary heart disease, which is used worldwide in cardiology. In the early 1990s, Dr. Forrester led a team that developed coronary angioscopy, and discovered that coronary thrombosis was universally present in patients with unstable angina.

During his tenure, the Cedars-Sinai cardiovascular research program became a world leader in thrombolytic therapy, nuclear cardiology, and women’s heart disease. US News & World Report recognized the cardiology division as the leading program in the West and today it is ranked #3 in the nation. He also served as mentor to several hundred cardiologists, many of whom have become international leaders in the field.

Dr. Forrester has been member of the Board of Trustees of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the LA Board of Directors of the American Heart Association. He served on the editorial boards of all the principal scientific journals in cardiology and published over 400 full-length scientific manuscripts. He has been a visiting professor at the nation’s leading medical universities and featured lecturer at national and international cardiovascular symposia.

His honors include the Leon Goodman Award for excellence in laser research; the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles; and the Jan Kellerman Award for research in preventive cardiology. He received the Simon Dack Award for Outstanding Scholarship and was the second person selected for the American College of Cardiology’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Cedars-Sinai has honored him with their Pioneer in Medicine and Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Dr. Forrester received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After serving an internship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he came to Los Angeles as an internal medical resident at UCLA-Harbor Medical Center and completed his cardiology fellowship at Harvard University. Dr. Forrester joined the cardiology staff at Cedars of Lebanon as Director of Cardiovascular Research and Director of the National Institute of Health’s Center of Research in Ischemic Heart Disease in the early 1970s, a position he held until he became Division Director in the early 1990s.


2021 Recipients


Vanessa Northington Gamble, M'78, G'84, GR'87


Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD, is University Professor of Medical Humanities at the George Washington University. She is the first woman and first African American to hold this prestigious, endowed faculty position. She is also Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy and American Studies. In addition, she is Adjunct Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Throughout her career Dr. Gamble has worked to promote equity and justice in American medicine and public health. A physician, scholar, and activist, she is an internationally recognized expert on the history of race and American medicine, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care, and bioethics. She is the author of several widely acclaimed publications on the history of race and racism in American medicine and has been a member of several national boards and committees. She chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain an apology in 1997 from President Clinton for the infamous United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Dr. Gamble’s many honors include membership to the National Academy of Medicine, the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, and an elected Fellowship with the Hastings Center.

A proud native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble received her B.A. from Hampshire College and her MD and PhD in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania.


Rita F. Redberg, M'81


Rita F. Redberg, MD, MSc, is a cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco since 1990 and Core Faculty, Philip R Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. After growing up in Brooklyn, she graduated from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. She got a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics as a University of Pennsylvania Thouron Fellow. Dr. Redberg is the Chief Editor of JAMA Internal Medicine since 2009 and has spearheaded the journal’s new focus on health care reform and “less is more”. Her research interests are in the area of health policy and technology assessment, and how to promote high value care, focusing on high risk medical devices as well as the need for inclusion of women in clinical trials of such devices.

Dr. Redberg recently completed a 6 year term on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress on Medicare payment issues. She also served on the Medicare Evidence, Development and Coverage Advisory Committee from 2003-2006 and was reappointed as its Chairwoman from 2012–2016.

She has given Congressional testimony multiple times in hearings related to the issue of balancing safety and innovation in medical device approvals. Dr. Redberg worked in the office of Senator Hatch and with the Senate Judiciary Committee on FDA-related matters during her tenure as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, 2003-2006. Dr. Redberg is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.




2020 Recipients


Leonard Hayflick, C'51, G'53, GR'56


Leonard Hayflick, C’51, G’53, GR’56, a native Philadelphian, is currently Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1962, as a member of the Wistar Institute and an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, he discovered that cultured normal human cells had a limited ability to divide, overturning a 60-year-old dogma that all cells are potentially immortal. He interpreted his discovery to be aging at the cell level, which launched the modern era of aging research by redirecting its cause to intracellular events.

He also discovered that only cancer cells are immortal, which redirected research to how mortal normal human cells become immortal cancer cells.

Hayflick found that frozen normal human cells “remembered” their doubling level after thawing and discovered that the counting mechanism was located in the cells’ nucleus. The Nobel Prize was awarded to those who found the molecular mechanism for Hayflick’s phenomenological discoveries. Chromosome ends (telomeres) shorten at each cell division until their “Hayflick Limit” is reached, but cancer cell immortality was caused by an enzyme (telomerase) that synthesizes the molecules lost from their telomeres.

Hayflick also discovered that normal human cells replicated every human virus then known and developed the technology that enabled safer vaccines, thus benefiting more than one billion people. He invented an inverted microscope for cell culture work that is the father of all current inverted microscopes. It has been accessioned by the Smithsonian Institution along with packages of polio and rabies vaccines produced in his normal human cell strain WI-38.

Hayflick discovered that the cause of “walking pneumonia” was not a virus, as previously believed, but mycoplasmas, the smallest free living microorganisms known. He named the organism Mycoplasma pneumoniae that he grew on a unique medium and used worldwide.

Among Hayflick’s many honors is the John Scott Award from the City Council of Philadelphia, the oldest scientific award in the United States. It was established in 1816 to honor Benjamin Franklin.


Gregg Semenza, M'82, GR'84


Gregg L. Semenza, M’82, GR’84, was a recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research into how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. He received an A.B. in Biology, magna cum laude, from Harvard College; MD and PhD (in Genetics) degrees from the University of Pennsylvania; pediatrics residency training at Duke University; and postdoctoral training in medical genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he has spent his entire faculty career. He is currently an American Cancer Society Research Professor and the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins, with joint appointments in Pediatrics, Medicine, Oncology, Radiation Oncology, and Biological Chemistry. Since 2003, he has served as founding Director of the Vascular Program in the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering.

Dr. Semenza is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research, American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, National Academy of Medicine, and National Academy of Sciences. He has received the Canada-Gairdner International Award, Lefoulon-Delalande Grand Prix from the Institut de France, Wiley Prize for Biomedical Sciences, Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, and the Massry Prize. He has published more than 400 papers, which have been cited over 140,000 times.

Dr. Semenza’s laboratory discovered, cloned, and characterized hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1), which is the founding member of a family of master regulators that direct transcriptional responses to decreased oxygen availability in virtually all animal species. His lab has shown that HIFs play important roles in cardiovascular disorders, cancer, chronic lung disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, transplant rejection, ocular neovascularization and hematologic disorders.




2019 Recipients


J. Sanford Schwartz, M’74, RES'77


J. Sanford (Sandy) Schwartz, M’74, RES’77, is an internationally respected leader in clinically oriented health services research and policy. His contributions to medical decision making, innovation, and assessment of interventions and practices have spanned three decades—impacting policy and practice around the globe.

Dr. Schwartz served for a decade (1989-1998) as Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He was Founding Director of the American College of Physicians’ Clinical Efficacy Assessment Project (the medical profession’s first evidence-based clinical guideline program), a Presidential appointee to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and Founding Editor of the American Journal of Managed Care. The former co-director of Penn’s Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program has also received numerous teaching awards—including the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Perelman School of Medicine’s highest teaching honor.


Rajiv Shah, M’02, GRW’05


Rajiv Shah, M’02, GRW’05, brings over twenty years of experience in business, government, and philanthropy to The Rockefeller Foundation. Appointed as USAID Administrator by President Obama in 2009, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Shah was charged with reshaping the $20 billion agency’s operations to provide greater assistance to pressing development challenges around the globe. By elevating the importance of innovation, promoting public-private partnerships, rethinking internal practices, and shifting how dollars were spent to deliver stronger results, Shah secured bipartisan support that enabled USAID to dramatically accelerate its work to end extreme poverty. Despite partisan gridlock on many issues, two significant Presidential priorities – Feed the Future and Power Africa – passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support and were signed into law by President Obama, and the Global Food Security Act is the second largest global development legislation after PEPFAR. Shah’s work delivered results for countries facing democratic transitions, post-conflict situations, and humanitarian crises, and is widely credited with providing life-saving access to food, health, and water for millions of children across the planet.

When Dr. Shah left USAID in 2015, he continued to follow his passion for creating opportunities for communities to thrive in the developing world by founding Latitude Capital, a private equity firm focused on power and infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia. He was also appointed as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University.

Raised outside of Detroit, Michigan, Dr. Shah is a graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the Perelman School of Medicine, and the Wharton School of Business. Prior to his appointment at USAID, Shah served as Chief Scientist and Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics at the United States Department of Agriculture. He also served in a number of leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he helped launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (a joint venture by the Gates and Rockefeller foundations) and the International Financing Facility for Immunization (credited with raising more than $5 billion for childhood immunizations worldwide), and where he supported the creation of the Global Development Program. He and his wife, Shivam Mallick Shah, have three children.




2018 Recipients


Richard Besser, M'86


Richard Besser, M'86, is president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is the former acting director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and ABC News’ former Chief Health and Medical Editor.

At RWJF, Dr. Besser leads the largest private foundation in the country devoted solely to improving the nation’s health. In his role at ABC News, Dr. Besser provided medical analysis and reports for all ABC News programs and platforms. His weekly health chats on social media reached millions.

Before joining ABC News in 2009, Dr. Besser worked as Director of the Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response at the CDC. In that role, he was responsible for all the CDC's public health emergency preparedness and emergency response activities. He also served as acting director of the CDC from January to June 2009, during which time he led the CDC's response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Dr. Besser’s tenure at the CDC began in 1991 working on the epidemiology of food-borne illness. He then served for five years on the faculty of the University of California, San Diego as the pediatric residency director, while also conducting research and working for the county health department on the control of pediatric tuberculosis. He returned to the CDC in 1998 as an infectious disease epidemiologist working on pneumonia, antibiotic resistance and the control of antibiotic overuse.

Dr. Besser received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Williams College and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore where he was chief resident. He volunteered for seven years as a pediatrician with the Children's Aid Society in New York City, and he is currently a Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.


Karl Rickels, FEL'57


Karl Rickels, FEL'57, is the Stuart and Emily Mudd Professor of Human Behavior and Professor of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Charter and Life Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, who received his medical training in Germany and completed his psychiatric training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1957.

Dr. Rickels is an internationally recognized expert in psychopharmacology, with particular interest in anxiety disorders. He has written or edited 10 books and authored or co-authored more than 600 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and reviews. Since 1959, Dr. Rickels’ research has received continuous support from NIMH—including a prestigious Merit Award in 1988, starting with grant MH02914 in 1959 and ending with grant MH65963 in 2009. His main area of academic interest is the psychopathology and treatment of anxiety disorders, depression and premenstrual syndrome, benzodiazepine dependence, and research methodology.

Nationally, Dr. Rickels has served on peer review panels at the NIMH, and on advisory committees to the FDA—including chairing the FDA Over-the Counter Review Committee on over-the-counter daytime and nighttime sedatives and stimulants from 1972-1975.

At Penn, Dr. Rickels served on the Committee on Appointments and Promotion from 1977-1984, chaired the University Institutional Review Board from 1982-1998, and chaired the Department of Psychiatry COAP from 2003-2017.

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Rickels has established 3 endowed chairs at Penn: the Karl E. Rickels Professorship in 1993; the Karl and Linda Rickels Professorship in 1999; and the Roehrhoff Rickels Professorship in 2015.




2017 Recipients


Peter J. Jannetta, C’53, M’57, INT’64


The late Peter J. Jannetta, C’53, M’57, INT’64, was an internationally recognized neurosurgeon and the long-time chair of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Jannetta will receive the award posthumously, after his death at 84 in April 2016. Dr. Jannetta developed an innovative neurological technique, known as the Jannetta procedure, which is now the gold standard for relieving facial spasms and excruciating pain caused by trigeminal neuralgia. The microsurgical technique involves identifying and relieving pressure from the blood vessel compressing the trigeminal nerve. While unprecedented and somewhat controversial when Dr. Jannetta first developed it as a neurosurgical resident at UCLA, the technique now has a recognized 90% success rate for alleviating pain, and has impacted the lives of thousands of patients.

Dr. Jannetta’s exceptional contributions to the field of medicine and his standing as a noble physician qualified him for this recognition. Upon learning that he was to receive the DGA, a point of pride for him to be recognized by his beloved Penn, he started writing his remarks. His daughter, Joanne J. Lenert, M’85, will proudly deliver Dr. Jannetta’s message and accept the award on behalf of the family. She will be joined by her mother, Diana, her daughter, Susan and many members of the family for what would have been Dr. Jannetta’s 60th Reunion.


Frederick S. Kaplan, GM'81


Frederick S. Kaplan, GM’81, is the Isaac and Rose Nassau Professor of Orthopaedic Molecular Medicine and Chief of the Division of Molecular Orthopaedic Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Orthopaedics Residency Program.

In 1989, Dr. Kaplan, as an orthopaedic surgeon, met a child with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), a rare and disabling condition in which the body forms a second skeleton of heterotopic bone. Motivated to know and do more, Dr. Kaplan began a pioneering second career in FOP research: work that led to the discovery of the FOP gene, the fundamental target for all therapeutic efforts for this condition.

Dr. Kaplan, along with his colleague Dr. Eileen M. Shore, PhD, the Cali-Weldon Research Professor of FOP, co-directs the Penn Center for Research in FOP and Related Disorders—the only center in the world devoted entirely to this work—and has organized the medical and scientific communities worldwide on this rare condition. He is recognized as the world’s leading expert on FOP. In 1997, he was awarded the first endowed chair for orthopaedic molecular medicine in the nation. In 2009, Dr. Kaplan was elected to the Institute of Medicine.

The late Victor McKusick, considered the father of clinical genetics, described Dr. Kaplan as “one of the really outstanding orthopaedic researchers of his generation. His work with FOP has been extraordinary and extends all the way from the patients to the bench and back again. The devotion of the families and the patients to him is testimony to the kind of human being he is.” Dr. Kaplan was cited in 2006 in Newsweek as one of the 15 people who make America great: “the disease was so rare, nobody wanted to deal with it until he came along.”




2016 Recipients


William E. Bunney, M'56


William E. Bunney, M’56, is a national and international award-winning researcher. His work has provided invaluable evidence regarding the causes and treatment for major psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

Dr. Bunney received his MD from the Perelman School of Medicine and completed his residency in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. Following his residency, he was recruited by Dr. David Hamburg to the Intramural Program of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), where he later held several leadership positions, including three years as Director of the Division of Narcotic Addiction and Drug Abuse. During his tenure, his division expanded the number of drug addiction treatment centers six-fold throughout the nation, and established eight university-based research programs on substance abuse.

Currently at the School of Medicine, University of California Irvine, Dr. Bunney is a Distinguished Professor and the Associate Dean for Research Administration and Development. He continues to be actively involved in research, and has had 17 publications in major journals over the last three years. He is the senior author on a notable paper presenting the first direct evidence for clock gene abnormalities in major depressive disorder, which has been ranked in the top 98% of all downloaded papers published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Bunney was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences—subsequently designated a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies—and was appointed for a term as Executive Vice President of the National Academies Corporation. He is the author of over 447 scientific publications, and his papers have been cited more than 34,000 times.

Dr. Bunney has received many national and international research awards, including the APA Hofheimer Research Award, the International Anna- Monika Award and the NARSAD Nora Maddox Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Affective Disorders Research. He was awarded the 2011 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the National Academy of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences, the 2012 Pioneer Award from the Collegium Internationale Neuro-psychopharmacologicum (CINP), the 2012 Yale Psychiatry Distinguished Alumni Award and, in 2015, the Payne Whitney Clinic Award for Extraordinary Public Service from the Department of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College at Cornell University.


Joseph Loscalzo, C’72, GR’76, M’78


Joseph Loscalzo, C’72, GR’76, M’78 is a cardiovascular medicine specialist nationally renowned for his work in vascular biology, thrombosis, atherosclerosis, and systems biology. His most recent work has established the field of network medicine, a paradigm-changing discipline using systems biology and network science to redefine disease and therapeutics from an integrated perspective. Dr. Loscalzo has also authored or co-authored more than 800 scientific publications, authored or edited 40 books, and holds 31 patents for his work in the field of nitric oxide and redox biology.

Currently, Dr. Loscalzo is the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his AB degree, summa cum laude, his PhD in biochemistry, and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical training was completed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he served as Resident and Chief Resident in medicine and Fellow in cardiovascular medicine.

Dr. Loscalzo has served on several National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections and editorial boards, and chaired the international Gordon Conference on Thrombolysis. He served as an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for nine years, Chair of the Cardiovascular Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Chair of the Research Committee of the American Heart Association, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. He is currently Director of the NIH-funded Center for Accelerated Innovation (the Boston Biomedical Innovation Center), the NIH-funded Harvard Undiagnosed Disease Network program, the recipient of an NIH MERIT Award, Editor-in-Chief of Circulation, and a senior editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Loscalzo is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the George W. Thorn Award for Excellence in Teaching at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Educator of the Year Award in Clinical Medicine from Boston University, the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentorship Award from Harvard Medical School, as well as the Distinguished Scientist Award, the Research Achievement Award, and the Paul Dudley White Award from the American Heart Association. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.




2015 Recipients


Patricia Acquaviva Gabow, M’69, INT’73


Patricia Acquaviva Gabow, M’69, INT’73, is nationally renowned for her work to increase access to basic health care in Colorado, and has led a successful career as a researcher, physician, and health care leader. She is the recipient of numerous awards, and has been named as one of the top 25 women in health care, one of the top 50 physician executives, and one of the 100 most powerful people in American health care.

As CEO of Denver Health and Hospitals—from 1992 until her retirement in 2012—Dr. Gabow transformed its health care system into a national model for its superior quality of care. Because of her efforts, Denver Health earned the Shingo Bronze Medallion for Operational Excellence: the first health care entity to receive such recognition. Most recently, Dr. Gabow she has been appointed to MACPAC, the federal commission on Medicaid and CHIP, and is Senior Advisor to Simpler Consulting. She is also a member of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees, the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Value and Science Driven Health Care, and the National Governors’ Association Health Advisory Board. 

Dr. Gabow is Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and has authored more than 150 publications, including articles, book chapters, and books. Her most recent book is The Lean Prescription: Powerful Medicine for Our Ailing Healthcare System. A loyal and active Perelman School alumna, she was chosen as the keynote speaker at Penn Medicine’s Women in Medicine event in 2009. 

Dr. Gabow attended Seton Hill College as an undergraduate, received her medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine, and completed an internship in Medicine as well as a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.


Robert M. Wachter, C’79, M’83


Robert M. Wachter, C’79, M’83, is considered the father of the hospitalist field. Originally coining the term in a New England Journal of Medicine article in 1996, he has become a national leader of the fastest-growing specialty in the history of modern medicine. He is also a well-respected expert in the fields of patient safety and healthcare quality. 

In 2004, Dr. Wachter received the John M. Eisenberg Award, the nation’s top honor in patient safety. He has been named one of Modern Healthcare magazine’s 50 most influential physician-executives in the US for the past seven years—the only academic physician to receive this recognition. In 2014, the same publication listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in healthcare. 

In the patient safety and quality arenas, Dr. Wachter edits the AHRQ WebM&M, a case-based patient safety journal on the Web, and AHRQ Patient Safety Network, the leading federal patient safety portal. He has written two books on these subjects, including Internal Bleeding—an Amazon best seller—and Understanding Patient Safety, the leading safety primer. His newest book, The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age, was published in April 2015. Dr. Wachter’s blog, www.wachtersworld.org, is one of the nation’s most popular healthcare blogs.

Dr. Wachter is currently Professor and Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he holds the Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine. He is also Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine and Chief of the Medical Service at UCSF Medical Center.

Dr. Wachter received his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine, and completed a residency and chief residency in internal medicine at University of California, San Francisco. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Stanford University, and studied patient safety in England in 2011 as a Fulbright Scholar.




2014 Recipients


William A. Eaton, C’59, M’64, GR’67


William A. Eaton, C’59, M’64, GR’67, is internationally recognized for his pioneering research on the physical chemistry of proteins. He is NIH Distinguished Investigator in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, which he joined in 1968 as a medical officer in the US Public Health Service.

Dr. Eaton also earned his doctorate in molecular biology from Penn. His investigations of the kinetics and thermodynamics of the aggregation of sickle cell hemoglobin exemplify the role of biophysical studies in providing major breakthroughs in understanding a human disease. He discovered and explained the highly unusual time course and sensitivity of sickle hemoglobin fiber formation and showed how they play a central role in both the pathophysiology and therapy of sickle cell disease.

Dr. Eaton has made significant contributions to the field of protein folding by pioneering the application of pulsed lasers to dramatically improve the time resolution in kinetic studies and by developing single molecule fluorescence methods to watch individual molecules fold and unfold. This work has led to major advances in understanding how the random conformations of the polypeptide chain self-assemble into the biologically active folded structure. All of Dr. Eaton’s experiments have been closely tied to theory, culminating in his development of a mathematical model of protein folding capable of quantitatively explaining a wide range of equilibrium and kinetic experimental results.

Dr. Eaton has also played a major leadership role at NIH. As Chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Physics since 1986, he has been responsible for building what is arguably one of the very top groups of biophysical scientists anywhere. As Scientific Director of the Intramural AIDS Targeted Anti-viral Program (IATAP) in the Office of the Director of NIH since 1986, his program has attracted many of NIH’s very best scientists to turn their efforts to research on the structural, molecular, and cell biology of HIV/AIDS. The IATAP program has contributed to the strong record of NIH scientists in meeting the AIDS crisis, and is now being used as a model for new granting programs within NIH in areas such as bioterrorism and orphan diseases research.

Dr. Eaton is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. His awards include the Neurath Award of the Protein Society, the Founders Award of the Biophysical Society, the Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics from the American Physical Society, and the John Scott Award of the City of Philadelphia.


Alan J. Wein, M’66, INT’70


Alan J. Wein, M’66, INT’70, has dedicated his life to the field of urology and his career to Penn Medicine. In 2012, Dr. Wein was a recipient of The Edward L. Keyes Medal, presented by the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons for “outstanding contributions in the advancement of urology.” The Keyes Medal is recognized as the greatest individual citation in urology and has been awarded rarely since its inception in 1926.

At Penn, Dr. Wein has held positions along the entire professional spectrum as student, to researcher, to clinician, and now as Professor and Chief of the Division of Urology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chief of Urology and Director of the Residency Program in Urology for Penn Medicine.M

Through Dr. Wein’s leadership, the Division is now considered among the nation’s leading centers for excellence in urology and urologic surgery. Under his direction, the Residency Program in Urology ranks among the top 5 in the country. In 2007, Dr. Wein was named the Founders Professor in Urology, which was created in recognition of his leadership and accomplishments.

Among his many honors, Dr. Wein is a recipient of the Urodynamics Society Lifetime Achievement Award, both the Distinguished Service and the Distinguished Contribution Awards of the American Urological Association, and the Ferdinand C. Valentine Award of the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Wein holds or has held editorial board or associate editor positions on 15 respected journals, authored or coauthored over 925 scientific publications or chapters and over 785 editorials, and written, edited, or coedited over 30 books on urologic topics. He is editor-in-chief of the gold standard textbook in urology, Campbell-Walsh Urology.

His laboratory is well recognized for numerous contributions to the physiology and pharmacology of the lower urinary tract, and Dr. Wein is widely acknowledged for his simplified and now commonly used approach for classification, evaluation, and management of lower urinary tract dysfunction, including incontinence, the effects of neuromuscular disease, and obstruction. He is also recognized for his primary role in developing the concept and terminology for the overactive bladder symptom syndrome and its diagnosis and noninvasive therapy. A founding member of the Society of Urologic Oncology, he directs the Urologic Cancer Program at Penn.

After graduating from Princeton University, Dr. Wein received his MD and completed training in surgery and urology at Penn, including a fellowship at the Harrison Department of Surgical Research. He was awarded an honorary PhD from the University of Patras, Greece, in 2005. He was conferred the status of Honorary Professor of the Federal State Institute of Urology by the Russian Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development in 2010.