Lauren White, a student in the UAB School of Health Professions’ M.S. in Health Administration program, is one of eight UAB students selected as Hoover Fellows, an initiative enabling students to be a part of advancing education, economic development, technology, business and innovation in the state.

Valene Garr Barry and Angela Richardson, students in our Department of Nutrition Sciences, have been honored by the UAB Graduate School as recipients of the 2021 UAB Samuel B. Barker Award for Excellence in Graduate Studies.

Drew Sayer, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Department of Nutrition Sciences, has been named the inaugural Ronald L. and David B. Allison Endowed Scholar. This award was established to provide support for junior faculty within the department who do not yet have RO1 funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Four faculty and staff from the School of Health Professions have been selected to receive the inaugural President’s Award for Excellence in Shared Values. The award honors Blazers who demonstrated one or more of UAB’s shared values in the course of their work during the extraordinary times presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

UAB has honored 27 students in the M.S. in Health Administration (MSHA) program with the President’s Diversity Champion Award for student organizations. The students took the initiative to create the MSHA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Council whose purpose is to prioritize DEI as fundamental pillars of the MSHA program and bring heightened social awareness to the faculty, staff, alumni, and students of the program.

Allyson Ferguson, a senior in our B.S. in Biomedical Sciences program and a member of UAB Honors College, has been named a semifinalist in this year’s Fulbright U.S. Student Program competition.

The UAB School of Health Professions has awarded inaugural faculty grants to Matt Ithurburn, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, and Haiyan Qu, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Health Services Administration.

Students in the UAB M.S. in Health Administration program (Class 56) had a “day on” rather than a “day off” on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

The School of Health Professions (SHP) Student Awards, for the fall semester of 2020, were managed by the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) with endorsement from the Program Directors. Due to COVID-19, we were not able to recognize our exceptional students with an award ceremony. Nonetheless, it does not diminish their excellence or their accomplishments.

The UAB Department of Health Services Administration has named Jessica Williams, Ph.D., director of the B.S. in Health Care Management program and Ria Hearld, Ph.D., director of the PhD in Administration-Health Services program.

The UAB School of Health Professions has partnered with the School of Medicine and the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB to offer a one-year post-graduation fellowship to a student in the M.S. in Genetic Counseling program. The fellowship will provide advanced clinical training, research and teaching opportunities in the area of cancer genetic counseling.  The student who is selected for the position will have full tuition support, be employed by the UAB Department of Genetics, and earn an educational stipend during the fellowship year in exchange for a four-year post-graduation commitment to work at UAB.

UAB Health System has donated $25,000 to establish the John Lewis Health Equity Program Support Fund. The gift, in honor of the Alabama native and civil rights hero, supports the UAB Health Equity Leadership Academy.

Many members of the School of Health Professions made service and service-learning a priority at the end of 2020. The SHP Staff Council hosted an SHP-wide holiday drive and the freshman course HRP 101: Experiencing the University Transition for Health Professions saw 14 teams of students support 11 community partners.

The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees appointed Donald Lein, PT, Ph.D., to the Bergman/Pinkston Endowed Professorship in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Physical Therapy on November, 13, 2020. Lein is only the second ever to earn the physical therapy professorship that honors UAB professors emeritus Joan Bergman and Dorothy Pinkston.

Krystle Glasgow, CNMT, NMTCB(CT), NMAA, a teacher in the UAB School of Health Professions, has been recognized as a Fellow by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging – Technologist Section. She is one of only three in the state of Alabama to earn the prestigious honor.

Hope Gray, MTS, BCC, a student in the UAB Doctor of Philosophy in Administration-Health Services program – Health Informatics track, has been awarded the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Leadership and Education Award (LEAD) Fund Scholarship. She is one of only two to earn the award.

Established in 2016, the AMIA LEAD Fund is focused on supporting membership diversity, trainee engagement and developing future AMIA leaders.

“I am honored to have been selected as an AMIA LEAD Fund Scholarship Awardee this year,” said Gray who is a Board-Certified Chaplain with training in ethics, empathy and diversity, equity and inclusion. “I presented my PhD work to AMIA members and gained meaningful feedback for which I am thankful.”

“We are grateful to AMIA for seeing the value in developing future Health Informatics leaders with the LEAD fund. Their mission in doing so is very much aligned with the mission of UAB’s Graduate Programs in Health Informatics and further develops our students to lead and innovate in the field,” said Sue Feldman, RN, MEd, Ph.D., director, Graduate Programs in Health Informatics.

Gray has participated in the AMIA Clinical Informatics Conference (CIC) as well as several JAMIA Journal Clubs. In addition, she is a member of many AMIA workgroups including:

• AMIA First Look
• Clinical Information Systems
• Clinical Research Informatics
• COVID-19 Community & Discussion Forum
• Natural Language Processing
• Student Working Group
• Women in AMIA Discussion Forum

The AMIA LEAD Fund promotes the value of informatics in transforming health and healthcare by awarding scholarships and research, highlighting innovation and discovery, recognizing professional achievement, and promoting leadership and advocacy.

Students in the UAB M.S. in Health Administration program helped UAB Hospital surpass its goal of collecting more than 268 bicycles for the annual Salvation Army Toy Drive.

When she joined the UAB Office of Interprofessional Simulation for Innovative Clinical Practice, Kelly Roszczynialski, M.D., as their simulation fellow, she was informed of UAB’s new M.S. in Healthcare Simulation program.

On December 2, 2020, Dina V. Avery, DHSc, MA, MAEd, was elected chairperson of the Alabama Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalition. The ACCCC is a statewide network of physicians, organizations, medical groups, cancer patients, cancer survivors and more. They are dedicated to reducing the incidence, morbidity and mortality of cancer in Alabama.

UAB School of Health Professions’ Professor Sue Feldman, Ph.D. and Assistant Professor Mohanoj Thirumalai, Ph.D., along with the Department of Pathology’s Sixto M. Leal Jr., M.D., Ph.D., were awarded the Faculty Innovator of the Year honor during the fifth-annual UAB Innovation Awards.