Recent Alumni Award Recipients
Mardia Stone, MD, MPH, is an international public health and medical professional, focusing primarily on global health since 2000, working with governments, nongovernmental organizations, United Nations agencies, international institutions and private establishments in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
As a World Health Organization (WHO) Ebola Response Team consultant and coordinator during the West African Ebola epidemic (2014-2016) and post-Ebola health systems rehabilitation, Stone was seconded to Liberia’s Ministry of Health / Emergency Operations Center. She provided technical assistance and advice to the Incident Manager / Incident Management System, coordinating the National Ebola Response on policy and strategic direction.
Post Ebola, with WHO support, she assisted in establishing the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (2016/2017), becoming the senior and technical advisor to its first Director General (2017-2019), building/improving capacity for public health laboratories and county surveillance teams.
Previously, Stone was Chief of Staff to Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer, and a senior advisor to the Division of Global Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School.
Mardia Stone is a Founding Fellow of the Liberia College of Physicians and Surgeons, established in 2012, to address the shortage of trained specialists in the country, by setting up residency training programs, using the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons model.
As an obstetrician/ gynecologist, Dr. Stone assisted in setting up the residency program for Morehouse School of Medicine at Grady Hospital and was a lecturer in Public Health at Cuttington University Graduate School (Liberia).
Mardia Stone chaired the Transition Team on Health and Social Welfare for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Presidential Transition Team. A broadcast journalist before medicine, she is an accomplished author (Konkai: Living Between Two Worlds and co-author of Collapse and Resiliency, the Inside Story of Liberia’s Unprecedented Ebola Response), public speaker, visionary, strategic and operational leader.
Michael H. Sherman, MD, MA, FACEP, is an Assistant Professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and an attending physician in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine at Boston Medical Center. He is dual board-certified in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine, with a clinical focus on critically ill patients at the intersection of the emergency department and intensive care unit. He completed his Emergency Medicine residency at Stony Brook University Hospital and his Critical Care fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Sherman’s work centers on improving systems of care for high-acuity patients across both the emergency department and ICU. He leads initiatives in resuscitation, emergency critical care operations, and quality improvement, with a focus on standardizing early, high-impact interventions. He is actively involved in multidisciplinary efforts to strengthen the ED-to-ICU interface and advance innovative care models, including emergency department-based resuscitation care units.
His research focuses on resuscitation practices, invasive monitoring, and national trends in emergency critical care delivery. His work has been presented both nationally and internationally. It has been recognized for innovation and scholarship, including the UMass Memorial Health Innovator of the Year Award and a Society of Critical Care Medicine Congress Scholarship Award. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Dr. Sherman is deeply committed to medical education. He has developed and leads interactive, case-based curricula that bridge physiology with real-time clinical decision-making and mentors trainees pursuing careers in emergency and critical care medicine. His work reflects a broader commitment to advancing emergency critical care as a discipline and improving outcomes for the most vulnerable patients.
Tamara Fitzgerald, MD, PhD, holds a Bachelor of Science (’97) and Doctor of Philosophy (’04) in biomedical engineering and Doctor of Medicine (’04) from Boston University. During her final year of medical school, she participated in a global surgery elective in Cameroon, which became a foundational learning experience regarding surgical disparities in sub-Saharan Africa. After completing a residency in general surgery and a fellowship in pediatric surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital, she travelled to Uganda to work with the country’s only pediatric surgeon. At the time, Uganda was a country of 35 million people.
Working together with U.S. and Ugandan colleagues, they were able to establish a pediatric surgery fellowship in Uganda. This fellowship has received certification by the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa and has trained 12 pediatric surgeons who continue to practice in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ugandan pediatric surgery team is self-sufficient and performs complex cases such as large tumor resections, anorectal malformation repairs and separation of conjoin twins,
Dr. Fitzgerald’s research interests have focused on innovation and implementation of medical devices designed for low-income countries. Working in a multi-disciplinary collaboration that includes surgeons, neonatologists, midwives, biomedical engineers, lawyers, business associates, entrepreneurs, lawyers and global health experts from the U.S. and Uganda, the team uses human-centered-design to reimagine access to surgery. Such devices have included the KeyScope, which is a laparoscope designed for the needs and resources in Uganda, and a low-cost silo for gastroschisis. This work has included in-country manufacturing and Ugandan-led business models to create a sustainable ecosystem for medical device development in Africa. These devices are currently entering clinical trials in Uganda, with plans for dissemination in other low- and middle-income countries.
Omid Farokhzad, MD, is the Chair and Chief Executive Officer for Seer. Previously, he was a Professor at Harvard Medical School and served as the founding director of the Center for Nanomedicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
He has authored over 190 papers (>108,000 citations, H-Index 139) and is an inventor of over 250 issued and pending patents. Omid previously founded BIND Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BIND, acquired by Pfizer), Selecta Biosciences (now Cartesian Therapeutics, NASDAQ: RNAC), Dynamics Special Purpose Corporation (NASDAQ: DINS), which merged with Senti Biosciences, and PrognomiQ, where he currently serves as board chair.
Omid is a laureate of the 2023 Mustafa Prize and the 2013 RUSNANOPRIZE for his work on nanomaterial surface modification. He was elected as 2018 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and 2012 Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is a recipient of the 2016 Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the 2014 Golden Door Award from the International Institute of New England, for his scientific, societal, and economic contributions to America as an immigrant.
He was named among the 2012 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year New England. Omid received his M.D. and M.A from Boston University and his M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management. He completed his post-graduate clinical training at Harvard Medical School and his post-doctoral research training at MIT in the Laboratory of Professor Robert Langer.
Tara Moore, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, where she also serves as the Associate Dean of Research, ad interim. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Calgary in 1995 and her Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neurobiology from Boston University School of Medicine in 2000. She is currently the Director of the Laboratory of Interventions for Cortical Injury and Cognitive Decline and has over 30 years of research experience in cognitive neurobiology.
Dr. Moore’s primary research focus is the assessment of cognitive and motor function impairments in rhesus monkey models of cortical injury and aging and the underlying neurobiological basis for these impairments. In both models, she is assessing the efficacy of an innovative therapeutic, mesenchymal stromal cell derived extracellular vesicles (MSC-EVs), to reverse deficits in cognitive and motor function by decreasing neuroinflammation and myelin pathology.
In addition to her research, Dr. Moore has an extensive teaching portfolio, including teaching at the undergraduate, masters and PhD levels. Specific courses she has taught include anatomy, professional skills, methods in neuroscience and the neurobiology of aging. She is also the director of the MS Program in Forensic Anthropology. Her commitment to education was recognized with the 2016 Educator of the Year award from the Graduate Medical Sciences at Boston University School of Medicine.
As an active participant in the academic community, Dr. Moore is a long-standing member of the Boston University IACUC committee and served as committee chair for five year and is currently serving as the committee vice-chair. She also serves on various national and international committees, including numerous NIH study sections. Dr. Moore is a reviewer for several scientific journals and has published extensively on topics related to aging, cortical brain injury and therapeutic interventions.