Emeritus Faculty Awards
The University of Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association Emeritus Faculty Award recognizes outstanding service to the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. It is offered to an emeritus faculty member who has exhibited exceptional commitment to the school over a period of years.
2012 Emeritus Faculty Award Recipient - Clinical Sciences
This award is given to a clinical scientist who demonstrated long and effective service to the UW School of Medicine and Public Health in teaching and/or research or noteworthy administration, including program development.
Lincoln F. Ramirez, MD, PhD
Dr. Ramirez is a professor emeritus of neurosurgery. He attended medical school at the University of Illinois, surgical internship at the University of Minnesota and residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He holds a PhD in physiology from Illinois.
In 1982, Dr. Ramirez introduced the subspecialty of epilepsy surgery to treat patients with medically intractable epilepsy at UW Hospital and the Middleton VA hospital. To streamline patient care, these hospitals established a Comprehensive Epilepsy Program in 1985 that partnered him with epilepsy neurologists in a program that continues today. It has benefited not only the citizens of Wisconsin, but all Midwest veterans for whom the Middleton VAH became the official Midwest referral center.
In 2001, he instituted an innovative neuroscience curriculum for the clinical years at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. It merged the related contributions of ophthalmology, neurology, neurosurgery, rehabilitation medicine and neuroradiology into a single clinical neuroscience course. This curriculum grew from the need for medical graduates with a broader understanding of clinical neuroscience than could come from the traditional and isolated teaching of neurology and ophthalmology alone. The multi-disciplinary curriculum had not been previously attempted at U.S. medical schools.
Although Dr. Ramirez was a role model in providing excellence in patient care, his primary contribution to faculty, residents and students was a life-long dedication to professionalism and ethical treatment for all.
2012 Emeritus Faculty Award Recipient - Basic Sciences
This award is given to a basic scientist who demonstrates long and effective service to the UW School of Medicine and Public Health in teaching and/or research or noteworthy administration, including program development.
C. Daniel Geisler, ScD
Over 34 years at UW, Dr. Geisler made important contributions to the field of hearing science. In the early 1960s, he helped bring to campus one of the first laboratory computers (the LINC). By performing "on-line" data analysis and control of experiments, it revolutionized physiological research (and campus computing).
In neurophysiology's auditory section, Dr. Geisler and his team used the computer to study the mammalian inner ear. Their start was William Rhode's discovery of the ear's built-in amplifying system that allows us to hear weak sounds. By research comparing the cochlea's sound inputs with its neural outputs, Dr. Geisler's group illuminated the processes and effects of this "cochlear amplifier."
The group also recorded cochlear responses to many different sounds, including the vowels and consonants of English speech. To account theoretically for results, they created a series of evolving mathematical models. Dr. Geisler summarized much of existing cochlear physiology in his 1998 book, From Sound to Synapse.
Dr. Geisler earned his ScD in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a graduate student, he characterized human EEG responses to sounds. Objective hearing tests now use that same technique. He held joint appointments in the UW electrical engineering and neurophysiology eepartments. He was a pioneer in establishing biomedical engineering (BME) at UW, first with a group, and then a center. A BME department followed.