Seven UW School of Medicine and Public Health faculty honored with university fellowships

The total number of honorees from the school this year for these categories of fellowships is the highest in the past decade. Three were honored with Kellett Mid-Career Awards, two received H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowships, and two were appointed WARF Named Professorships. They are among 33 total UW–Madison faculty from the four divisions of arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and biological sciences who received fellowships.

“The incredible number of SMPH faculty receiving these high university honors reflects the remarkable depth and breadth of our entire faculty,” says Dean Robert N. Golden, MD. “Congratulations to these wonderfully talented faculty members, and all of their colleagues and staff who support their work.”

The awards are made possible because of the research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff. Technology that arises from these efforts is licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and revenue is returned to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, where it is used to fund research activities, including these awards.

Kellett Mid-Career Awards

Kellett Mid-Career Awards support those who are seven to 20 years past their first promotion to a tenured position. The award was created to provide support and encouragement to faculty at a critical stage of their careers. The honor, named for the late William R. Kellett, a former president of the WARF board of trustees and president of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, comes with $75,000 that may be spent over five years.

Marina Emborg

Marina Emborg, MD, PhD, professor of medical physics, directs the Preclinical Parkinson’s Research Program at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. Her innovative and comprehensive research approach is changing how Parkinson’s disease and related disorders are conceptualized and modeled and how new therapies are delivered and tested.

Megan Moreno

Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, professor of pediatrics and adjunct professor of educational psychology, is the vice chair of academic affairs and division chief for General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. Her research team, the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team (SMAHRT), focuses on the intersection of technology and adolescent health.

William L. Murphy

William L. Murphy, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering and professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation, directs the Forward BIO Institute. He has invented and developed multiple new types of biomimetic materials, which are materials inspired by nature. Murphy’s research group has used new materials to manufacture medical devices, human cells, and human tissues. These products are now being used to discover and deliver new medical treatments.

H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship

The H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowships recognize faculty within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. The award is named in recognition of the late WARF trustees president H.I. Romnes and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years.

Pablo F. Gómez

Pablo F. Gómez, MD, PhD, associate professor of medical history and bioethics and associate professor of history in the College of Letters and Science, studies the histories of knowledge-making and health and corporeality with a particular focus on Latin America, the Caribbean, and the African diaspora. Gómez is working on a history of the quantifiable body emerging in slave trading circuits in the 16th and 17th centuries. He is also collaborating on several projects related to legal history and global histories of science and medicine.

Kristen Malecki

Kristen Malecki, PhD, MPH, associate professor of population health sciences, is director of the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW). As an ongoing longitudinal study that has been running since 2008, SHOW facilitates community-based and population health sciences research in Wisconsin. Her current research uses a multi-omic approach to examine combined chemical (air and water) pollution, physical and social stressors, and their influence on adult chronic disease, aging, and health disparities.

WARF Named Professorships

WARF Named Professorships, which come with $100,000, honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors and also as a result of their teaching and service activities. Award recipients choose the names associated with their professorships.

Paul Lambert

Paul Lambert, PhD, is chair of the Department of Oncology (also known as the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research). Lambert’s laboratory studies the pathogenesis of human papillomaviruses that are associated with about 5% of human cancer. His lab has defined the roles of viral and host factors in these cancers, identified new therapeutic targets, and defined the mechanism by which these human tumor viruses evade the host immune system. They have also defined the roles of multiple viral genes in the viral life cycle. With this WARF award he becomes the Roswell K. Boutwell Professor of Oncology.

Jonathan Patz

Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, the John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment, holds appointments in the Department of Population Health Sciences and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. In 2011 he was appointed the inaugural director of the Global Health Institute. His career has focused on the human health effects of climate change and ecological degradation. With this WARF award Patz becomes the Tony J. McMichael Professor of Planetary Health.