{"id":147159,"date":"2026-10-02T14:08:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=147159"},"modified":"2026-10-02T16:05:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:05:01","slug":"annual-alumni-awards-luncheon-honors-physicians-researchers-and-educators","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/news-events\/articles\/2026\/annual-alumni-awards-luncheon-honors-physicians-researchers-and-educators\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon Honors Physicians, Researchers and Educators"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Celebrating the 2026 Alumni Award winners, (l to r) Humanitarian Awardee Tamara Fitzgerald, MD\u201904, PhD\u201904, Distinguished Alumni Awardee Omid Farokhzad, MD\u201999, MA\u201994, MBA, Advocacy, Equity & Social Justice in Medicine Alumni Awardee Mardia Stone, MD\u201979, MPH, Emerging Leaders Alumni Awardee Michael Sherman, MD\u201915, MA\u201911, GMS Distinguished Alumni Awardee Tara Moore, PhD\u201900. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon Honors Physicians, Researchers and Educators \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Kimberly Dodd, MD\u201902, MS\u201910, named new Alumni Advisory Council president.\u00a0 <\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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October 2, 2026<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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This year\u2019s annual Alumni Awards Ceremony and Luncheon held September 18 in Hiebert Lounge, honored five alumni who improved healthcare access in low-income countries, reimagined critical and emergency care, invented technologies to fight diseases and advanced medical science.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe chose amazing people,\u201d said Alumni Advisory Council Awards Committee Chair Heidi Abdelhady, MD\u201998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past 25 years, Mardia Stone, MD\u201979, MPH, the inaugural recipient of the Advocacy, Equity & Social Justice in Medicine Award, has focused primarily on global health. A sense of duty and love for her native country, prompted her return to Liberia in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Passing the gavel from Alumni Association President Sasha Chudnovsky, MD’01, to his successor Kimberly Dodd, MD’02, MS’10.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Stone worked for seven years in Liberia, in the wake of a brutal civil war, during the administration of the country\u2019s first female president Ellen Johnson Sirfeaf. She chaired the transition team on health and social welfare, building the foundation for its healthcare system. Stone returned to the U.S. in 2013, but was called back the next year by Tolbert Nyenswah, LLB, MPH, DrPH, who was leading the country\u2019s response to Ebola. At the time, not much was known about the disease except that it was nearly always fatal. Even as doctors and other healthcare providers were dying alongside their patients, or fleeing the country in terror, Stone remained, working for three years as a World Health Organization Ebola Response Team consultant and coordinator, and co-authoring a book, \u201cCollapse and Resiliency, the Inside Story of Liberia\u2019s Unprecedented Ebola Response\u201d, with Nyenswah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe worked shoulder-to-shoulder with government leaders and community members to coordinate response efforts that saved lives,\u201d said Associate Dean of Alumni Affairs Heather Miselis<\/a>, MD\u201900\u201904, MPH\/MA\u201900. Stone established residency training programs to address the shortage of specialists in the country and helped found Liberia\u2019s first national public health institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy journey has not been a straight and narrow path,\u201d said Stone. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot. I\u2019ve done a lot. I\u2019ve met a lot of people. But standing here at this institution is one of the most joyful moments of my life, because this is where it started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Sherman<\/a>, MD\u201915, MA\u201911, assistant professor of emergency medicine and critical care medicine, received the Emerging Leader\u2019s Award. Sherman is an attending physician at Boston Medical Center whose work is focused on \u201cthose first critical hours when every decision, every action, every second matters,\u201d said Miselis. \u201cHe dedicates himself to caring for the sickest patients, but also to reimagining the systems of care that he works with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sherman\u2019s research examines resuscitation practices, invasive monitoring and national trends in emergency critical care delivery. Miselis lauded Sherman for his innovative, interactive teaching style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs emergency critical care physicians, we\u2019re rarely the doctors anyone wants to see,\u201d said Sherman. \u201cBut we have the privilege of being there when patients need us most. We bring critical care to patients wherever they are: in the emergency department, the ICU, the operating room or even in the elevator.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was a fourth-year medical student, Humanitarian Award recipient Tamara Fitzgerald, MD\u201904, PhD\u201904, chose a travel elective doing general surgery in Cameroon. Following her residency, she traveled to Uganda where she worked with that country\u2019s only pediatric surgeon and helped establish a fellowship that has since trained a dozen pediatric surgeons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with a diverse team that included everyone from surgeons to entrepreneurs from the U.S. and Uganda, Fitzgerald spearheaded the development of low-cost medical devices for low-income countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the reasons that I loved it here (at BU) was because I felt like this institution always had a heart for people who can\u2019t access healthcare,\u201d said Fitzgerald. \u201cWhether that was ministering to homeless people in Boston or globally, or helping people who, for whatever reason, can\u2019t access care.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Omid Farokhzad, MD\u201999, MA\u201994, MBA, is the author of more than 200 papers and an inventor with more than 200 patents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis discoveries have demonstrated the power of using nanoparticles to deliver targeted therapies, to detect diseases earlier and to personalize medicine in ways I never thought possible,\u201d said Miselis. Farokhzad\u2019s discoveries have launched six biotechnology companies and he has endowed chairs, established scholarships for young scientists and trained and mentored more than 120 post-doctoral fellows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is that careers are rarely built according to a master plan,\u201d he said. \u201cMine has been built through curiosity, hard work, good fortune, but most importantly through people. Every accomplishment is the work of many hands and minds: mentors who took a chance on me; colleagues who challenged me; students and fellows whose ideas made the science better; collaborators who brought perspectives I didn\u2019t have; and teams who were willing to pursue difficult problems when success was far from certain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Layne<\/a>, PhD\u201997, associate dean of graduate medical sciences, ad interim<\/em>, praised the research, collaborative approach and teaching skills of Tara Moore<\/a>, PhD\u201900, professor of anatomy & neurobiology, associate dean of research, ad interim<\/em>, and recipient of the Graduate Medical Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHer work has made numerous contributions to understanding brain aging, cortical injury and neuroplasticity,\u201d said Layne. \u201cAll of this work has been extremely impactful for our understanding of human disease and biology.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, Moore was recognized for her teaching abilities with the GMS Educator of the Year award. She served for five years as chair of Boston University\u2019s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and is now vice chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did what you\u2019re not supposed to do; I stayed in the same lab for my entire career,\u201d said Moore. \u201cBut it\u2019s been very rewarding. One of the factors that kept me at BU is the community here. There is a strong focus on mentoring, collaboration and support. It\u2019s an amazing environment in which to be a researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual luncheon also marks the transition to a new Alumni Advisory Council president, with Sasha Chudnovsky, MD\u201901, handing the gavel to his successor Kimberly Dodd, MD\u201902, MS\u201910.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s annual Alumni Awards Ceremony and Luncheon held September 18 in Hiebert Lounge, honored five alumni who improved healthcare access in low-income countries, reimagined critical and emergency care, invented technologies to fight diseases and advanced medical science.   \u201cWe chose amazing people,\u201d said Alumni Advisory Council Awards Committee Chair Heidi Abdelhady, MD\u201998. For the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":147166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"Alumni","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[395,356],"bu-publication":[367],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[376,378],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/147159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147159"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/147159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147234,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/147159\/revisions\/147234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=147159"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=147159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}