Elizabeth M. Staley, M.D., Ph.D. Recipient of the 2014 William Boyd Medal in Pathology
Elizabeth (Liz) M. Staley, M.D., Ph.D. recently received the William Boyd Medal at the University of Alabama School of Medicine Dean’s Award Luncheon. Elizabeth will be joining the UAB Pathology Residency program this summer. Liz is a recent graduate of the UAB School of Medicine, but prior to medical school Liz was a UAB graduate student, receiving her PhD degree in Microbiology in 2009. Her research focused the role of P-glycoprotein (the protein product of the multi-drug resistance gene) in intestinal homeostasis and disease and she published four first-author manuscripts from this thesis research. Liz is originally from Quincy Illinois and she attended the University of Missouri-Columbia for her undergraduate studies. Liz is married to Dr. Danny Harmon, a Neurosurgeon here in Birmingham, and they have two boys.The Boyd Medal has been awarded continuously since 1967 and is given on behalf of the Alabama Association of Pathologists and the faculty of the UAB Department of Pathology to the graduating medical student whose performance in Pathology through-out their medical school career has been most outstanding. This award was named in honor of Dr. William Boyd who is considered by many to be one of the fathers of pathology education. Dr. Boyd was born in Portsoy Scotland in 1885 and obtained his medical degree in 1908 at Edinburgh. He was a medical officer in the First World War and published his first book, With a Field Ambulance at Ypres in 1916, about his war experience. He then moved to Canada where he rose to the rank of professor of pathology at University Manitoba, and later moved to University of Toronto and University of British Columbia. After retiring from UBC he came to UAB as a visiting professor from 1955 to 1972. Dr. Boyd published 7 textbooks, one of which was the first pathology text to emphasize pathophysiology and pathogenesis rather than just morphology. This text was popular word-wide and went through 20 editions. Dr. Boyd was once referred to as: "The Pathologist with a silver tongue and a golden pen."
Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Staley for this prestigious award.