Awards and More

Pradeep Fulay has been appointed program director for the Electronic, Photonic, and Devices Technology Program (EPDT) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Fulay is a professor in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. As a program director at NSF, Fulay will have primary areas of responsibility, including micro/nanoelectronics, molecular electronics, spin electronics, organic electronics, power electronics, and micromagnetics.

Susan Gillis Kruman, a faculty member in Pitt’s Department of Health and Physical Activity, has been named Teacher of the Year/University Level by the Eastern District Association of the Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

Gillis Kruman, a Point Breeze resident, heads the dance minor program at the University and directs the University Dance Ensemble. She has danced professionally in New York City and with Dance Alloy, a Pittsburgh professional contemporary dance company.

Her degrees include a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance performance from the University of Utah and a master’s degree in education from Pitt.

Mario C. Browne, project director for the Center for Minority Health in the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), has completed the prestigious Emerging Leaders in Public Health Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Only 25 out of more than 200 applicants were accepted into the 2007-08 Emerging Leaders Program. Designed to prepare the next generation of public health leaders, the nine-month program added new skills to Browne’s extensive background in planning and implementing culturally appropriate public health programs in African American communities in Pittsburgh.

Browne completed his master’s degree in public health in behavioral and community health sciences at GSPH in 2005.

Paul Wood has been appointed to the newly created role of vice president for public relations at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

Wood will lead all of UPMC’s global media relations and internal communications activities, reporting to Sandra Danoff, senior vice president and chief communications officer.

Wood spent more than 17 years at Ford Motor Co. where he was responsible for developing and executing communications strategies supporting a variety of Ford’s operations. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in statistics at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He also holds an Accreditation in Public Relations from the Public Relations Society of America.

Pitt School of Medicine Professor L. Dade Lunsford was selected by Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. to receive a Physician of the Year Award in Clinical Excellence.

The prestigious award honors a select group of physicians who have made notable contributions to the field of medicine. Honorees are selected from more than 600,000 physicians currently practicing medicine in the United States.

Lunsford, Pitt’s Lars Leksell Professor of Neurological Surgery, a neurosurgeon at UPMC, and the codirector of the UPMC Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery, has achieved international acclaim as an expert in stereotactic surgery. Under Lunsford’s leadership, UPMC, in 1987, became the first hospital in the United States to use the Gamma Knife, a device for performing brain surgery without an incision.

Today, UPMC has three such devices and remains the world leader in radiosurgery experience, with more than 8,600 patients treated to date.

In 2007, Lunsford was named Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Hans-Christoph Pape, a professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has won the Kappa Delta Award, the highest honor given to scientific and clinical researchers by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). Pape also is chief of orthopaedic trauma surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The award marks the fourth time in five years that a Pitt Department of Orthopaedic Surgery doctor has won a Kappa Delta Award.

Pape is honored for his groundbreaking clinical research introducing optimal methods of managing orthopaedic injuries of multiple-injury trauma patients. The concept of his work is known worldwide as “damage-control orthopaedics,” whereby seriously injured patients are stabilized and organ and system functions are restored as fully as possible before surgical repair of orthopaedic injuries begins.

Donna Armstrong has been named the new director of teacher education at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. She will oversee scheduling for each semester and will keep abreast of changes in state teacher certification standards, including a major change in the state requirements for elementary teacher certification that will begin next year.

Currently, UPB’s education program has 180 students in nine majors—biology education, business education, chemistry education, elementary education, English education, environmental studies education, health and physical education, math education, and social studies education.

Armstrong earned a Doctor of Education degree in curriculum and instruction at Marshall University Graduate College. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in leadership studies and an educational specialist degree as a supervisor of instruction from Marshall; a Master of Arts degree in elementary education from West Virginia University; and a Bachelor of Science degree in early/middle education from Bluefield State College.

Christian Stumpf, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown assistant vice president of auxiliaries and director of the conference center, was the recipient of the 2008 Jack Thornton Distinguished Service Award, the most prestigious individual honor given by the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Directors-International (ACCED-I).

The award recognizes Stumpf for distinguished service to the collegiate conference profession and ACCED-I. Nominees must demonstrate service to the association through two or more of the following: service as an officer or board member at the national level; service as a regional director; service as a committee chair/project team leader; or service to an associated professional organization whose focus/mission is related to ACCED-I.

David Geller, the Richard L. Simmons Professor of Surgery in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and co-director of the UPMC Liver Cancer Center, has been chosen president-elect of the Society of University Surgeons (SUS).

As the nation’s premier organization for surgeon investigators, the SUS is dedicated to advancing the art and science of surgery by encouraging members to pursue original investigations in both the clinic and the laboratory and by developing innovative methods for teaching surgery.

As a hepatobiliary surgical oncologist, Geller has clinical interests in the evaluation and management of patients with liver cancers. He has pioneered minimally invasive liver resection surgery, performing more than 200 such procedures, and specializes in laparoscopic radio-frequency ablations of liver tumors.

Geller’s one-year term begins in February 2009. His duties will include overseeing the SUS executive council and committees for the growth of educational and political agendas, directing meetings and retreats, developing long-range strategic planning for the organization’s growth, and delivering the presidential address in 2010.

Geller received his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in 1988 and completed his general surgery residency in 1996 at UPMC, followed by a liver transplantation fellowship at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in 1998.