The 2022 ACR Awards of Distinction

As a member of the Carolinas Fellows Collaborative, her first academic project in education was co-writing goals and objectives for rheumatology learning activities. Based on this curriculum development work, she was invited to join the ACR Task Force on Rheumatology Milestones, which composed rheumatology curricular milestones and the ACR entrustable professional activities for training. 

This work led to her becoming a founding member of the Curriculum Subcommittee of the ACR Committee on Rheumatology Training and Workforce Issues, which she chaired from 2019 to 2022. She has been involved in the CSE Advisory Board since her CSE award started, and chaired this group from 2016 to 2019. Prior to receiving this award, one of her proudest professional moments was being asked to present the Education Year in Review during ACR Convergence 2020.

Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award

Lisa G. Rider, MD, FACR, FAAP, head of the Environmental Autoimmunity Group, Clinical Research Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, Bethesda, Md., received this year’s Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award, which honors an active ACR/ARP member for their contributions to the rheumatology profession through outstanding and ongoing mentoring. 

“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this tremendous recognition from the ACR,” says Dr. Rider. “I share this award with many individuals—most importantly, those students and young doctors whom I helped train, as a mark of their independent contributions to improving the lives of children and adults with myositis and other rheumatic diseases. I also thank many individuals who partnered in co-mentoring these talented fellows and students with me.” 

Dr. Rider attended Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., and trained in pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital/University of Washington, Seattle, where she also trained as a clinical pediatric rheumatology fellow. She completed research fellowship training and her pediatric rheumatology fellowship at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, Md., and at the Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

She pursued a second post-doctoral fellowship with Frederick Miller, MD, PhD, at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Bethesda, Md., where she began her research on juvenile myositis. She worked with Dr. Miller for most of her career. In 2001, the group moved to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences on the Bethesda NIH campus. In 2004, she became deputy head of the Environmental Autoimmunity Group, and group head in 2021. Dr. Rider has been clinical professor of medicine at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., where she co-founded a myositis clinic.