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2013 News and Events

February, 2018

Cathy Jordan received the award for Excellence in Child Health Advocacy
Betsy Murray received the Excellence in Teaching award
Damir Utrzan received the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop Award entitled Effects of Parental Incarceration on Family and Child Wellbeing: Informing Best Practices Through an Investigation of Caregiver Experiences. The team includes Joshua Page, Sociology; Damir S. Utržan, Pediatrics (Medical School); Caitlin Curry, Sociology; Julie Matonich, Children of Incarcerated Caregivers; Barbara Frey, Human Rights Program (Law); Perry Moriearty, Child Advocacy and Juvenile Justice Clinic (Law).
Lena Palacios received an award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Lena has been named a 2018 Career Enhancement Fellow.
Cathy Jordan received the Medical School recipient of the President's Community-Engaged Scholar Award.

November, 2017

Naomi Duke, MD, PhD, MPH, defended her doctoral dissertation, Youth Survival Expectations: A Study of Relationships with Early Contexts for Disadvantage & Forecasts for Future Health, to earn her PhD in Sociology.

October, 2017

Rebecca Shlafer received a Grand Challenges Research Award for Fostering Just and Equitable Communities. The project is entitled, Identifying and Addressing Disparities in the Criminal Justice and Health Care Systems. Co-PIs: Rebecca Shlafer, Pediatrics; Michelle Phelps, Sociology; Kevin Reitz, Law School; and Tyler Winkelman, Medicine. $570K interdisciplinary team award.

September, 2017

Abi Gadea and Paul Snyder recently joined 21 others across the University system in completing the year-long Office of Equity and Diversity's Leadership in Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Program. Through mentoring, personal assessment and reflection, educational programming, targeted skill-building through group work, and community building, Abi and Paul increased their leadership capacity at work through the larger context of equity and diversity.
Betsy Murray, Andy Barnes, and Emily Borman-Shoap, who are named as Top Doctors in the October issue of Minnesota Monthly.

August, 2017

Congratulations to Michael Resnick on being named the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient this year from Minnesota Business Innovators in Health and Wellness.
Cathy Jordan was invited to be part of a delegation of 4 U.S. National Science Foundation PIs (and some grad students) to the International Science of Learning Conference (https://events.slrc.org.au/) in Brisbane in September and to participate in an intensive post-conference workshop to share knowledge and build collaborations with members of the Australian Science of Learning Research Centre (https://www.slrc.org.au/).
Andy Barnes’ service as an outstanding mentor is featured on the CTSI website (scroll down).

July, 2017

Annie-Laurie McRee and Kristine Rhodes (of the American Indian Cancer Foundation) were recently awarded a pilot grant from the University's Program in Health Disparities Research (PHDR) for their project, Increasing HPV Vaccination in American Indian Health Systems Through a Tailored Toolkit. This project will pilot an HPV vaccination intervention and assess effects on provider vaccination recommendations and HPV vaccine uptake among adolescents attending American Indian health clinics.
Jen Doty just received notice that she has been awarded an Institute of Translational Research (ITR) Collaborative Seed Grant for her proposal, Development of a Parenting Mobile Application with Biofeedback for Latino Parents. The project will include building an app that provides support tools for developing parenting skills, such as example videos, goal setting, and daily goal reminders, as well as assessing stakeholder input to increase effectiveness of the tool.
Congratulations to Betsy Murray and her team, including Andy Barnes and Hannah Gaustad-Randolph, on successful re-competition of their Collaborative Office Rounds (COR) grant, now funded for five more years. Through interdisciplinary care conferences, COR promotes on-going collaboration between primary care pediatricians, developmental behavioral pediatricians, and child psychiatrists to improve child health. COR has been ongoing now since 2006.
Our Leadership Education in Adolescent Health (LEAH) grant was also funded for another 5 years. Congratulations to Renee Sieving, who led this competitive renewal as the new PI of LEAH, taking over this key leadership role from Michael Resnick. Our MN LEAH program has been continuously funded since 1978! With this successful grant application, Renee led a team of many who make LEAH and our Interdisciplinary Fellowship a truly outstanding training program.

June, 2017

Congratulations to Andy Barnes who received the Presidential Award for Service from the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis.
Iris Borowsky received the 2017 Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Department of Pediatrics Alumni Achievement Award.

May, 2017

Leslie Kummer was awarded "Best Poster" among the Medical Fellow presenters at the Minnesota American Academy of Pediatrics Annual Meeting for her poster: “Social and Structural Determinants of Breastfeeding in the United States."

April, 2017

Eunice Areba and Myriam Forster received a Grant-in-Aid award for their project: Promoting Effective Coping among Immigrant and Refugee Adolescents. This community engaged project is a collaboration with the Community University Health Care Center (CUHCC) to examine the prevalence and correlates of substance use involvement, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and coping skills that counteract the negative effects of sociocultural stressors on Hispanic and Somali youth.
Eunice Areba won the People's Choice award for her poster "Suicidality: The School Context as a Protective Factor for Ethic Minority Adolescents" at the School of Nursing's Research Day.
Gabriela Lazalde won the Best Culminating Project Presentation for her Health Policy & Management MPH project, "Parent Perceptions of Dentists as HPV Vaccinators".
Renee Sieving received the School of Nursing Award for Community-Engaged Scholarship.
Jennifer Doty received 2nd at the annual PRESS event for her poster presentation in the Postdoctoral Fellow category on "Sexual Harrasment Involvement: Connections Matter" - Research Sponsor: Iris Borowsky
Gabriela Lazalde won the People's Choice Award at the School of Public Health Research Day.
Leslie Kummer received the J.B. Hawley Research Award for her proposed qualitative research project with MDH/WIC. The project is entitled, "Mobile Health Communication in the Minnesota WIC Peer Breastfeeding Support Program: Perceived Benefits and Barriers."

March, 2017

Christen Pentek, LEAH Social Work Fellow, received news that her abstract, When Children Have Rights: Minnesota Secondary Students’ Perceptions of School Police Officers, was accepted for an oral presentation at the International Consortium for Social Development in July 2017 in Zagreb, Croatia!
Rebecca Shlafer received the terrific news that her grant proposal, Efficacy and Cost-Effectiveness of Doula Care for Incarcerated Pregnant Women, was selected for funding for a Pediatrics "R" Award.
Andy Barnes and Emily Borman-Shoap, were named "Rising Stars” by Mpls.St.Paul Magazine
A very special congratulations to Lyn Bearinger who received the SAHM Lifetime Achievement Award!

February, 2017

Rebecca Shlafer is the faculty recipient of the 2017 Excellence in Health Equity Research Award. She received the award at the 2017 Program in Health Disparities Research Power of Partnerships Awards Dinner & Poster Session.

January, 2017

Rebecca Shlafer received a grant from Otto Bremer Trust to improve the mental and physical health outcomes of incarcerated pregnant women and mothers in the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Prison Doula Project.
Jen Doty just received word that she received a grant from the Family Process Institute in support of her Early Career Research for “Development of a Parenting Mobile Application with Biofeedback for Latino Parents.”
Jenny Oliphant completed her service on the Minnesota Department of Health's Stillbirth Workgroup. The group was charged with conducting a review of the current methods of data collection on stillbirths, prenatal protocols to prevent stillbirths, available supports for families who have experienced a stillbirth, and providing recommendations to the state's Maternal and Child Health Task Force. The workgroup was at the request of the state legislature. Findings were delivered to the Commissioner of Health on Dec. 9th.
Marla Eisenberg received the Department of Pediatrics Excellence in Child Health Advocacy award
Emily Borman-Shoap received the Department of Pediatrics Excellence in Teaching award
Michael Resnick received the Department of Pediatrics Outstanding Mentor award

October, 2016

Emily Borman-Shoap, Andy Barnes, and Betsy Murray were recognized as Minnesota Monthly’s Best Doctors 2016
Rebecca Shlafer (KL2 Scholar) and Diego Garcia-Huidobro (Translational Research Development Program Scholar) received CTSI travel awards for their outstanding posters and presentations last month.
Abi Gadea and Paul Snyder were accepted into the academic year cohort of the Office of Equity and Diversity's LEAD Program. Abi and Paul are 2 of 28 persons from across the University who will spend the next year exploring the connection between leadership and social justice. For more information on the LEAD program, click here
Paul Snyder was also invited to serve on Commissioner Cassellius' ESSA School Improvement Advisory Committee. ESSA stands for Every Student Succeeds Act - the successor legislation to No Child Left Behind. Signed by President Obama on December 10, 2015, ESSA provides states with an opportunity to strengthen our efforts to build a world-class system of public schools where all children succeed.

September, 2016

Peter Scal was selected for the Clinical Scholars National Leadership Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This award recognizes that our interdisciplinary team crossed professional boundaries and committed to working together to build a culture of health for children with special health care needs across Minnesota.
Dianne Neumark-Stzainer was accepted to participate in the 2016-2017 Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program. This is an intensive 1-year fellowship of leadership training aimed at expanding the national pool of highly qualified women candidates for leadership in academic medicine, dentistry, and public health.
Rebecca Shlafer added another degree to her accomplishments, an MPH. Last month she successfully defended her thesis, Incarcerated Parents and Their Minor Children: State and National Comparisons.
Diego Garcia-Huidobro, fellow in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, was selected for the American Journal of Public Health 2016 Editor's Choice Awards as one of the Best Reviewers of the Year. The November issue of AJPH will feature a column discussing his service as a peer reviewer.
Diego Garcia-Huidobro also earned another degree earlier this month, a PhD in Family Social Science. His doctoral dissertation is, From Mothering-Programs to Parenting-Programs: A Mixed-Methods Inquiry to Engage Fathers in Parent Education.

August, 2016

Andy Barnes was chosen to be part of the Child Health Research Acceleration thru Multi-site Planning (CHAMP) program. Read more here.
Marla Eisenberg just received an NIH R21 Award, “Health needs of gender variant youth.” The research team includes Amy Gower and Barb McMorris.

July, 2016

Iris Borowsky was promoted to Professor, tenured.
Peter Scal was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

May, 2016

Laurel Davis, fellow in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, appeared on WCCO Radio on May 15. She shared information on parental incarceration and talked about a CTSI-funded research project that she conducted with Rebecca Shlafer. Listen here.
Andy Barnes is the recipient of the University of Minnesota Foundation grant for a study entitled, "Cumulative Risk and Protective Influences, Gene Expression, and Developmental Competence in Childhood." The grant will allow Andy and his team to expand the genetic analyses on their 2015 State Fair cohort of 300 children, and to conduct a study this summer of 300 additional patients in our Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics and Autism Clinics to continue to develop and validate some brief measures of risk and protective factors that were piloted in the State Fair study.

April, 2016

Michael Resnick gave the Max Seeham Lecture on Social Pediatrics at the Topics & Advances in Pediatrics, held June 2nd and 3rd at the Wilf Family Center.
Christopher Mehus, fellow in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, is working to address secondary traumatic stress among interpreters. See more here.

March, 2016

Diego Garcia-Huidobro, fellow in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, is the recipient of the Cecil J. Watson Award, given each year for the most outstanding research by a physician in graduate training in any clinical department of the Medical School.
Research by Rebecca Shlafer and Laurel Davis led Washington County jail to implement changes that will soften the shock for visiting children. See story here.

February, 2016

Diego Garcia-Huidobro, fellow in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, is this year's recipient of the Joanna Simer Research Fellowship.
Chris Mehus, Child & Adolescent Primary Care Research Fellow, was selected for funding under the Academic Pediatric Association Young Investigator Award Program for Evidence Based Health Supervision Using Bright Futures.