LCOM & Department News

Gender Equity Event Features Talk on Dismantling Dominant Culture, Celebrates Awardees

March 1, 2023 by Jennifer Nachbur

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont hosted the fourth annual Celebration of Gender Equity in Medicine and Science on March 2, 2023.

L-R: Page; Carr; Sigmon; Lautenberger; Dougherty; Marroquin; Feinberg; Khadanga.

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont hosted the fourth annual Celebration of Gender Equity in Medicine and Science on March 2, 2023 in the Sullivan Classroom in the Medical Education Center. The event, which was also livestreamed on Zoom, was the first in-person event held since 2020.

The event opened with a welcome from both Larner Dean Richard L. Page, M.D., and remarks from Director of Gender Equity Anne Dougherty, M.D., M.A., who noted that to date, 20 Larner faculty, staff and students have been honored with Gender Equity awards. "Women now make up the majority of the college's senior leadership positions," she reported, noting that the work towards equity goes beyond gender, and includes colleagues of color, members of the LBGTQIA+ community, and persons with disabilities.

Diana Lautenberger, M.A., director of gender equity initiatives for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), presented a keynote address on “The Next Chapter of Gender Equity: Addressing Myths, Power, and Dominant Culture.” 

In her role at the AAMC, Lautenberger works to integrate gender equity approaches across the association’s missions and work. She manages the organization’s gender equity portfolio, which includes research, education, and projects to promote equitable working environments as well as developing resources for marginalized populations in academic medicine, and takes an intersectional and gender expansive approach to addressing gender equity issues in higher education and science, technology, engineering, math, and medical science fields. Current projects include Women of Color and Intersectionality, the Gendered Impact of the Pandemic, Salary Equity, and Sexual Harassment in Academic Medicine.

Lautenberger's talk centered on the role of dominant culture and related gender norms in oppressing not only women, but all marginalized groups. She emphasized the need to identify the intentional dominant forces responsible for perpetuating oppression in order to break down barriers and create a culture of inclusion and belonging.

"We really want gender equity to be about all genders," she said, adding, "It's about anti-oppression; that's the goal."

During the awards ceremony, Joanna Conant, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Gender Equity Steering Committee education and development working group co-leader, described each award, following which 2022 Gender Equity Award recipients introduced each of the 2023 awardees. Presenters included Conant, recipient of the 2022 Rising Star Emerging Professional Award; Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., chair of microbiology and molecular genetics and 2022 Outstanding Achievement in Medicine and Science Award recipient; and Isabelle Desjardins, M.D., UVM Medical Center chief medical officer, professor of psychiatry, and 2022 recipient of the Polaris Award for Outstanding Mentorship award.

The 2023 awards, recipients, and nominees include:

  • Gender Equity Champion Award – This award honors Larner College of Medicine community members—faculty, staff, or students—who have demonstrated outstanding commitment and service to the advancement of women and those with underrepresented gender identities beyond the scope of their job, area of research, or training. Recipients: Bridget Marroquin, M.D., associate professor of anesthesiology, and Nina Feinberg, Class of 2023 medical student. (Nominees: Erin Tsai, M.D.; Transgender Youth Program; Debra Leonard, M.D., Ph.D.)
  • Gender Equity Outstanding Achievement in Medicine and Science Award – This award will be given to a woman or gender minority** faculty member within the Larner College of Medicine who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in medicine and science through research, education or service. Recipient: Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry. (Nominees: Alexandra Potter, Ph.D.; Beth Zigmund, M.D.)
  • The Polaris Award for Outstanding Mentorship – The Polaris Award honors a Larner College of Medicine faculty or staff member who provides outstanding formal or informal mentorship for women or gender minority College community members. Recipient: Frances Carr, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology. (Nominees: Elizabeth Bonney, M.D.; Julie Dumas, Ph.D.; Pamela Gibson, M.D.; Alicia Jacobs, M.D.; Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D.; Rebecca Wilcox, M.D.; Christina Wojewoda, M.D.)
  • The Rising Star Emerging Professional Award – This award recognizes a woman or gender minority** faculty or staff member at the Larner College of Medicine who is in the early stage of their career, and who demonstrates excellence in contributions to students, colleagues, and/or the institution in the areas of gender equity and inclusion through service, program development, teaching, research, or beyond. Recipient: Sherrie Khadanga, M.D., assistant professor of medicine. (Nominee: Anja Jokela, M.D.)

**Gender minority refers to those who identify with a gender outside of the she/her, he/him binary.

Link to the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion's Gender Equity Initiative web page.

A video of the March 2 event will be available for viewing in the next week.

 

Past Department Highlights

Congratulations to the following individuals on their promotions effective July 1, 2024. Robert Wildin, M.D., promoted to Professor, Joanna Conant, M.D., promoted to Associate Professor, and  Amer Abu Alfa, M.D., promoted to Associate Professor. (6/2024)

Congratulations to Lisa Kapoor on 40 years of service to the pathology department. (6/2024)

Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, is featured on the People of Pathology Podcast- Episode 181: Redefining Pathology Training With Entrustable Professional Activities. (6/2024)

Pathology resident, Alayna Westcom, M.D., received the Distinguished Medical Student Award from The College of American Pathologists. The award recognizes a fourth-year medical student committed to pursuing pathology residency. (5/2024)

Sharon Mount, M.D., Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, presented a talk: “Autopsy in the USA: An update and interesting cases from the University of Vermont” at the University of Padua in Padua, Italy on April 22, 2024. (5/2024)Sharon-Padua

Congratulations to Anne Stowman, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on accepting the position as Network Vice Chair for Anatomic Pathology. (3/2024)  

Congratulations to Ashley Volaric, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on receiving a Physician-Scientist Pilot Award through the Translational Global Infectious Disease Research (TGIR Group) for her research on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) epigenetics of diffuse large B-cell lymphomas in sub-Saharan Africa. (3/2024)

Congratulations to Rebecca Wilcox, M.D., associate dean for faculty affairs, and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, on receiving The Polaris Award for Outstanding Mentorship, and Dr. Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., on receiving the Gender Equity Outstanding Achievement in Medicine & Science Award at the 5th Annual Celebration of Gender Equity in Medicine and Science Awards. This award honors a Larner College of Medicine faculty or staff member who provides outstanding formal or informal mnetorship for women or gender diverse** college community members. Dr. Wilcox was nominated by Andrea Green, Julie Dumas, Alexandra Kalof, and LE Faricy. (2/2024) **Gender diverse refers to those who identify with a gender outside of the she/her, he/him binary   

Congratulations to Dr. Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, the team in the Cunniff Lab, and industry partner , RS Oncology, on having their novel therapy enter Phase 2 Clinical trials. Read more here Milestone for UVM-developed cancer drug. (2/2024)

During the annual Larner College of Medicine's Foundations Award Celebration, Amer Abu Alfa, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine received The Dean Warshaw Integration Award recognizing the faculty member whose teaching best captured the spirit of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum. Congratulations. Christina Wojewoda, M.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and vice chair for education pathology, presented the Ephraim Woll Award for Excellence in General Pathology to John Rustad. (2/2024) 

Congratulations Dr. Bei Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP)CM, on January 17, 2024, is to receive the Educational Scholarship Award from the Teaching Academy Awards for Teaching and Educational Excellence. This award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated a record of Quality, Quantity, and Engagement in medical education scholarship. Dr. Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP)CM, has been advanced to Distinguished Educator by the Teaching Academy at LCOM. Congratulations also to Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., for advancing to the level of Master Teacher and Agnes Balla, M.D., on being inducted as a Member. (1/2024)

Congratulations to University Scholar Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., professor of medicine and pathology and laboratory medicine, on being ranked #90 in the U.S. and #144 in the world as one of the Best Female Scientists in the World, by Research.com. Also, Dr. Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., recently delivered the Robert Reneman Lecture at the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM)'s 2023 symposium in The Netherlands. The tile of her talk was "Stroke and Cognitive Impairment in a Biracial U.S. Cohort: The REGARDS Study." (1/2024)

In a recent Nature Methods paper, Doug Taatjes, Ph.D., Director of the Microscopy Imaging Center, and the Center for Biomedical Shared Resources at the Larner College of Medicine, together with colleagues from the international consortium QUAREP-LiMi, proposed a set of standardized community-developed checklists to assist researchers, reviewers, and journal editors with the goal of increasing the clarity and reproducibility of image figures and their analyses. The hope is that many journals will adopt these guidelines as part of their “Instructions for Authors”—providing a succinct and easy to use checklist for authors when compiling images for reproduction and descriptions of image analyses performed. (11/2023) (from the LCOM Newsletter)

Congratulations to some of our residents and our fellowship student on having their abstracts accepted for the upcoming 2024 USCAP annual meeting in March. "Unexpected Cardiac Amyloidsis: Demographics, Histology, Distribution and Clinical Significance: A Review of 15 Autopsy Cases." (Jesse Mostoller, Neel Hedge, Nick Taylor). "GATA3 Positive Malignant Spindle Cell Neoplasm Involving the Liver Diagnosed as Metastatic Sarcomatoid Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma at Autopsy." (Rae Nusapan). "Long Term Outcome in a Case of Tetralogy of Fallot Surgically Treated with Palliative Shunts: Findings from an Adult Autopsy." (Dore Guptil, Heather Giguere). (11/2023)

Mark_FungCongratulations to Dr. Mark Fung, M.D., PhD., Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on receiving the 2023 College of American Pathologists (CAP) Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Fung is a nationally recognized expert in transfusion medicine. (10/2023) 

Congratulations to Jessica Crothers, M.D., Assistant Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on achieving the Notice of Special Interest Team Science award from NIAID for: "Effects of the gut microbiota on oral vaccine response in adults and children." (10/2023)

Nicole BouffardCongratulations to Nicole Bouffard on being awarded the "Scientific Research Staff Award" for 2023. This was presented to Nicole at the September 21, 2023, LCOM Research Excellence Award Ceremony. This is a great honor for Nicole and the Department of Pathology and recognizes her contributions and importance to the department and MIC. (10/2023)

Congratulations to Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on being awarded a $1.6 million R01 grant by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study the role of mitochondrial trafficking in regulating cell migration, a key feature of metastatic tumors. (9/2023)

Congratulations to Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., Professor Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, on becoming a University of Vermont Cancer Center Program Co-Leader, Cancer Cell. (9/2023)

Congratulations to the following pathology members on receiving research support funds in April 2023. Recipients were: John Kennedy, M.D., $6520 for morphologic and immunohistochemical re-evaluation of renal cell carcinomas exhibiting papillary architecture, with emphasis on tumors demonstrating "type 2" morphology. Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D., $15,000 for a joint initiative between RBP, UVM Cancer Center, and faculty in the Department of Chemistry. Megan Tarte $745 for Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology and Disease ConferenceAlbert van der Vliet, Ph.D., $14,400 for Redox processes in macrophage activation in IPF. (9/2023)

Congratulations to the following faculty members on their promotions: Vikas Anathy, Ph.D., to Professor with tenure, Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., to Associate Professor, John DeWitt, M.D., Ph.D., to Associate Professor, Sarah Nowak Ph.D., to Associate Professor, and Christi Wojewoda, M.D., to Professor. (6/2023)

Bei Zhang, M.D., M.S., Ph.D., MLS(ASCP), associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, did an educational scholarship session titled "Activate Students Learning Outside Classroom." at the 8th International meeting of the Association of Biochemistry Educators. Dr. Zhang also conducted two additional workshops with other ABE members titled "Linking Clinical Presentations to Their Biochemistry: A novel ABE Clinical-Biochemistry Curricular Treat Mapping Educational Tool.", and "Getting to Clerkship and Beyond: Crafting Biochemistry Learning Objectives that Connect and Integrate Basic Science Concepts with Clinical Application." (5/2023)

Congratulations to Dr. Maureen Harmon, M.D., associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Dr. Amer Abu Alfa, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine for being recognized by medical students for their professionalism. Dr. Harmon was recognized for social responsibility and Dr. Abu Alfa was recognized for compassion. (5/2023)

Congratulations to Mary Cushman, Ph.D., M.Sc., professor of medicine and pathology and laboratory medicine, on being named a University Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division, and  Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. (5/2023)

View the story Mammograms of a study by Sarah Nowak, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and researchers at the UVM Cancer Center showing data that fewer women being screened for breast cancer. (4/2023)

vandervliet-habibovic420x280A new study by Albert van der Vliet, Ph.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and a team of University of Vermont (UVM) researchers is honing in on why people with asthma often have worse symptoms if they are obese. This new research demonstrates that the gene DUOX1 likely contributes to the connection between obesity and asthma.  The research was published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology and was highlighted as an APSselect article for March 2023. Albert van der Vliet, Ph.D., was the senior author on the paper, along with department of pathology and laboratory medicine coauthors Aida Habibovic, lab research technician; Litiele Cruz, Ph.D., visiting scholar; Vikas Anathy, Ph.D., associate professor; University Distinguished Professor Yvonne Janssen-Heininger, Ph.D.; and additional team members and authors from UVM. Read the full LCOM News story LCOM News (4/2023)

Congratulations to Bronwyn Bryant, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, for having your proposal, Consequential Validity of Entrustable Professional Activities in Pathology Residency Training selected to receive a Frymoyer Scholars Program project of $48,000 to be funded July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2025. (4/2023)

Congratulations to Martin Chang, M.D., Ph.D., on accepting the new role as Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs. (4/2023)

Congratulations to Joanna Conant, M.D., on becoming the new Pathology Student Fellowship Director starting July 1, 2023. (4/2023)

Congratulations to The Cunniff Lab, on receiving funding to support research focused on malignant mesothelioma. The funding was from The Butler Family Foundation Fund for Cancer Research at the University of Vermont Cancer Center. The Butler Fund was established by the Butler family in memory of two loved ones lost to mesothelioma. (03/2023)