The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced today that University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, will receive the 2015 David E. Rogers Award, which honors a medical school faculty member who has made major contributions to improving the health and health care of the American people. He will be presented the Award on November 8, 2015 at the AAMC's Annual Awards Event.
Sponsored by the AAMC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the award is named for David E. Rogers, MD, a former president of the foundation and a staunch advocate of academic medicine's commitment to meeting the nation's health care needs. The award was established 20 years ago, and has been given to a range of eminent clinicians and researchers, including former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and famed heart surgeon and inventor Michael E. DeBakey.
Dr. Reece, who is also Vice President of Medical Affairs, the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko Bowers Distinguished Professor, has served as the School's Dean since 2006.
Over his career, Dr. Reece has been a distinguished leader in academic medicine. As dean of the UM SOM since 2006, he has worked extensively to encourage and accelerate biomedical research, innovation and discovery, and has been a leader in incorporating research and critical thinking into the medical education curriculum. During his tenure, Dean Reece has been relentless in advancing the UM SOM to become one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the nation. In the past decade, in partnership with the faculty and University of Maryland Medical System, he led the establishment of multiple new academic and research centers and institutes at the UM SOM - including the Institute for Genome Sciences (2007), the Institute of Human Virology (2008), the Institute for Global Health (2015), the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (2009), the Center for Biomolecular Therapeutics (2010), the Shock Trauma Anesthesiology Research Center (2010) and the new Maryland Proton Treatment Center, which will become the most advanced cancer treatment facility in the Baltimore-Washington, DC region when it opens in 2016. He has also created a world-class research infrastructure at the school - including new core research facilities called the Center for Innovative Biomedical Resources (CIBR), a new collaborative Center for Health-related Informatics and Biomaging (CHIB) with University of Maryland-College Park, and culminating in the construction of a new 450,000 square foot medical research facility to open in 2017.
In addition to his role at the UM SOM, he has taken on several important professional leadership roles, including past chair of the AAMC Council of Deans and current chairmanship of the National Academy of Medicine Annual Meetings Program Committee, which helps inform national health policies. He is a member of the Governing Council of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Research Council Board. He has also held appointments within the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department for Veterans Affairs, and other federal agencies.
Dean Reece currently serves as an officer and executive committee member of Research!America, the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance committed to making research to improve health a higher national priority. As Chair of the IOM Program Committee, Dr. Reece has responsibility for developing the agenda that will advance the nation's health. He recently delivered the keynote address at the Inaugural Professional Development Conference jointly sponsored by the National Research Mentoring Network and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Conference, a consortium of the Big Ten member universities plus the University of Chicago that focuses on advancing academics.
In Maryland, Dr. Reece led the Governor's Task Force to dissolve the state's systemic health barriers. Its recommendations resulted in the passage of the Maryland Health Improvement and Disparities Reduction Act of 2012, which included a new state-wide program, the Health Enterprise Zones.
Across these roles, he has been an effective voice in the national health care debate, and has been at the forefront of advocacy campaigns to maintain funding for biomedical research. He has been an ardent champion of "big science" research, clinical service excellence, and cutting-edge innovations in medical education.
"I take these responsibilities very seriously," said Dean Reece, who is also Vice President of Medical Affairs, the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko Bowers Distinguished Professor. "I am committed to the idea that we must do everything we can to support biomedical research and education."
As a physician-scientist and expert in maternal-fetal medicine, Dr. Reece works tirelessly to improve the lives of mothers and infants. His research focuses on the mechanisms that underpin diabetes-induced birth defects, and on potential therapeutic interventions.
Dr. Reece received his MD from New York University School of Medicine; MBA from the Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University; and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. He completed post-graduate training in OB/Gyn at Columbia University Medical Center, and fellowship training in maternal-fetal medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. He remained on the full-time Yale faculty for nearly a decade.
"Dr. Reece is an academic medicine leader of the highest caliber," said Ralph Snyderman, MD, chancellor emeritus of Duke University. "I am very gratified that he has been given this award, which he richly deserves."
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