Members Honored for Their Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Rheumatology
WASHINGTON, D.C.—During ACR Convergence 2024 in November, the ACR honored a group of individuals who have made significant contributions to rheumatology research, education and patient care by announcing the recipients of the ACR’s 2024 Awards of Distinction, as well as the 2024 ACR Distinguished Fellows, recognized for their contributions to the field. The January 2025 issue will feature the 2024 ACR Masters, the ARP Merit Awards and the ARP Master recipients.
Dr. Holers
Presidential Gold Medal
The highest award the ACR can bestow, the Presidential Gold Medal is awarded in recognition of outstanding achievements in rheumatology over an entire career. This year’s Presidential Gold Medal Award recipient is V. Michael Holers, MD, Smyth Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora.
The historical focus of Dr. Holers’ research has been on the structure-function and biologic roles of the complement system. His laboratory performed the studies in which murine complement C3 receptors and membrane regulatory proteins were identified and characterized. Using tools developed through these studies, the in vivo pathogenic role of complement activation in murine models of human disease was demonstrated. These studies were recognized with the 2008 ACR Distinguished Basic Investigator Award. His group then developed a novel tissue-directed complement therapeutic approach that has experimentally demonstrated substantial benefits over traditional strategies and is currently being tested in patients with renal diseases.
Dr. Holers has moved his primary research activities to the natural history and pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) prior to the onset of clinically apparent arthritis. He co-founded, with Jill Norris, MD, PhD, Studies of the Etiologies of Rheumatoid Arthritis (SERA), a multi-institutional project focused on mechanism-based and epidemiologic assessments of individuals at risk for future RA. These highly collaborative studies have provided strong evidence for mucosal driver mechanisms underlying the development of autoimmunity and arthritis, identified a number of potential therapeutic strategies during this period, and led to the first RA prevention trial in the U.S. In recognition of these efforts, Dr. Holers was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Holers has worked as a volunteer for the ACR and the Rheumatology Research Foundation. Highlights include serving as chair of the ACR Committee on Research, the Foundation Scientific Advisory Council, the ACR Task Force on Research Funding and the Division Directors Special Committee. He also served as co-chair of the ACR Blue Ribbon Task Force on Academic Rheumatology and as a member of the Board of Directors of the ACR and the Foundation. Most recently, he served as president of the Foundation and as a member of the ACR Executive Committee. A major focus of Dr. Holers’ efforts in these roles has been to support the clinical and academic workforce, expand rheumatology research and emphasize the inter-related importance of the health of both private community and academic clinical practices.
Dr. Weyand
Distinguished Basic/Translational Investigator Award
The Distinguished Basic/Translational Investigator Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology, was presented to Cornelia Weyand, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and immunology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, Rochester, Minn. She holds joint appointments in the Departments of Immunology and Cardiology and leads the Program in Immunity and Inflammation, a translational program bridging basic immunology to patient care. Dr. Weyand also remains a faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine, California, as professor emerita.
Dr. Weyand earned her medical degree in Germany, followed by research training in immunology at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg. She completed her residency at Hannover Medical School in Germany and a fellowship in immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University. Dr. Weyand joined the Mayo Clinic in 1990, became a professor of medicine and immunology in 1998 and the Barbara Woodward Lips Professor of Medicine and Immunology in 2000. From 2004 to 2009, she was the David Lowance Professor of Medicine at Emory University, Atlanta, where she served as the director of the Lowance Center for Human Immunology and the Division of Rheumatology. In 2009, she returned to Stanford University, where she became the chief of rheumatology and the director of the Center for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Weyand’s contributions to science have followed the arc of how the immune system deviates from host protection to tissue damage. Her primary focus has been the immune defects that lead to autoimmune disease. Her research team has identified and characterized molecules of disease in three disease models: rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis and large vessel vasculitis. Learning from their patients, the Weyand team has defined metabolic signatures that nourish autoimmune tissue inflammation and has linked nuclear and mitochondrial DNA repair defects to tolerance breakdown. In recent work, Dr. Weyand discovered immune checkpoints and stem-like T cells that prevent the resolution of autoimmune disease. She has now turned her attention to the question of how the immune aging process predisposes to autoimmunity.
Dr. Weyand is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians. Early in her career, she received the ACR’s Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award and is the recipient of the Carol Nachman Prize in Rheumatology, the Paul Klemperer Award and the Mayo Distinguished Alumni Award. She was recognized as a Notable Woman in Science and Medicine by the Helmholtz Association. She has served as a Carnegie Centenary Professor to the Universities of Scotland.
In 2023, she was honored as a Distinguished Scientist by the American Heart Association. The National Institutes of Health have continuously supported her research program since 1993. She has presented more than 50 named lectureships, given more than 400 national and international presentations and her team has published more than 450 manuscripts. Her current H-index is 142. She has served as a mentor to more than 160 students, residents, fellows and junior faculty, many of whom have carried forward her legacy and are leading independent research programs as physician-investigators.
“To be recognized by my peers is a profound honor and a validation of the work we have done over the last decade,” says Dr. Weyand. “I am thankful to all those who have supported my journey as a physician-investigator.”
Dr. Solomon
Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award
The Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award, given annually to a clinical scientist making outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology, was presented to Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and a member of the Division of Rheumatology and Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Boston, where he holds the Matthew H. Liang Distinguished Chair in Arthritis and Population Health.
Dr. Solomon earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., a Master of Public Health at Harvard University, and he completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in rheumatology at BWH.
Dr. Solomon’s current research focuses on cardiovascular disease in rheumatoid arthritis and optimal strategies for managing the most common inflammatory arthritis, gout. He is the principal investigator on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded study examining biomarkers from a randomized, controlled trial testing the effect of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs on cardiovascular disease. He is also the principal investigator of the NIH/VERITY P30 Clinical Research Core at BWH; this project aims to improve clinical research in rheumatology. He is one of the principal investigators on a multi-site, randomized, controlled trial funded by NIH testing different strategies for managing gout. He also has several ongoing projects regarding digital health technologies in rheumatology, attempting to improve the use of patient-reported outcomes in routine practice.
He has published more than 450 original articles and more than 100 editorials and book chapters. His articles have been cited more than 100,000 times; his Google H-index is over 130, and his i10-index is over 510. He has been continuously funded for more than 25 years on numerous NIH, foundation and industry-supported grants.
Dr. Solomon is the current editor in chief of Arthritis & Rheumatology. He has chaired the ACR Quality of Care Committee and is a member of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s Arthritis Advisory Committee. He has mentored more than 40 trainees and been recognized with mentoring awards from the ACR, Harvard Medical School and BWH. In addition to his investigative achievements, Dr. Solomon has a busy clinical practice and has played a special role in helping the Hispanic community. He has been instrumental in advancing the collaborative clinical Cardiovascular in Rheumatology Medicine practice at BWH.
“There are so many outstanding clinical investigators in rheumatology!” says Dr. Solomon. “I am honored to be selected for this award; it means a lot to me, my colleagues and my family.”
Dr. Jones
Distinguished Clinician Scholar Award
The Distinguished Clinician Scholar Award, given to a rheumatologist who has made outstanding contributions in clinical medicine, clinical scholarship or education, was presented this year to Beth L. Jonas, MD, Reeves Foundation Distinguished Professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
“It is a distinct honor to be recognized by the ACR for my work as a clinician and educator in rheumatology,” says Dr. Jonas. “I have had the immense privilege of caring for patients over decades and being part of the training of a generation of young rheumatologists. I have grown and learned from each patient, student, trainee and colleague that I have had the good fortune to work with, and I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me.”
Dr. Jonas received her medical degree at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, and completed her residency in internal medicine at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., where she also served as chief resident. Dr. Jonas completed her rheumatology fellowship at Emory University, Atlanta. During her training she was a visiting researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Jonas joined the faculty at UNC in 1998, and in 2001 she was appointed rheumatology training program director, a role she served in until 2018, growing the program from two fellows to six. She was a founding faculty member of the Carolinas Fellows Collaborative (2003), an innovative collaborative including all the rheumatology programs in North and South Carolina and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Dr. Jonas was honored as the ACR Distinguished Fellowship Program Director in 2015.
A clinician educator, Dr. Jonas has an active rheumatology practice, where she sees patients with a wide spectrum of rheumatic and musculoskeletal disorders, and has a focus on inflammatory arthritis. She has been described as a clinician’s clinician who is an astute diagnostician. She teaches rheumatology to medical students, residents and fellows, and is actively involved in curricular development to train both physicians and advanced practice providers in rheumatology. Dr. Jonas is well published in the area of medical education and she received the Rheumatology Research Foundation Clinician Scholar Educator (CSE) award, which funded the development of an innovative rheumatology curriculum for medical students at UNC.
Dr. Jonas has held numerous leadership roles in medical education, demonstrating her broad, interprofessional teaching abilities, including as a course director in the UNC School of Medicine, with the ACR in its virtual learning for rheumatology fellows (V-FIT) programs and as course director for the Training Rheum, a training program for nurse practitioners and physician assistants in rheumatology.
Dr. Jonas has served as a volunteer at the ACR in multiple roles including as chair of the Committee on Training & Workforce Solutions and as co-chair of the ACR In-Training Examination Taskforce. She is the incoming chair of the ACR Committee on Training & Workforce Solutions.
Dr. Cannella
Distinguished Fellowship Program Director Award
The Distinguished Fellowship Program Director Award is awarded to a current or former rheumatology program director who has made outstanding contributions in the mentoring and training of future rheumatologists; this year’s recipient is Amy Cannella, MD, MS, RhMSUS, Gerald F. Moore Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha.
Dr. Cannella attended medical school and completed her internal medicine residency at UNMC, and her rheumatology fellowship at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Surrounded by gifted educators, Dr. Cannella credits much of her success as a clinician educator to her entire division’s commitment to medical education. Her overarching philosophy in education is that learning should be fun—with engaging content, varied delivery, purposeful repetition and rigorous assessment. She enjoys teaching at every level of medical education. Establishing the rheumatology fellowship in 2005, she remains the program director to date.
In an effort to recruit clinicians to rheumatology, Dr. Cannella started teaching upstream, and currently directs the clinical and post-graduate rheumatology rotations and multiple preclinical courses in the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. Educational highlights in her portfolio include 36 successful fellow graduates, ultrasound curriculum and live patient encounters, in which she brings patients with rheumatic disease into a small group setting to teach first- and second-year medical students.
Dr. Cannella has been a member of the ACR Committee on Training & Workforce Solutions and chair of the Resident Education Subcommittee, where she worked on the original iterations of Rheum2Learn. She served as a member, section editor and chair of the Continuing Assessment Review Evaluation (CARE) Development Group. Since 2011, she has been a mentor for the Ultrasound School of North American Rheumatologists, and led the development of the ACR mini-curriculum for Ultrasound in Rheumatology. In recognition of her educational contributions, she has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including three Golden Apples and the Excellence in Basic Science Teaching and the Innovative Practices in Education awards. Under her leadership, the UNMC fellowship program has received 14 Rheumatology Research Foundation Amgen Fellowship Training Awards.
Dr. Cannella believes educating the next generation of medical professionals is both a team sport and a labor of love. The walls of her office are not covered with diplomas, but rather with pictures of her family, her children’s artwork and patient mementos. It is with profound gratitude that she has the trust of her fellows, help of her colleagues, inspiration of her patients and support of her husband and three children.
“I am honored beyond measure to receive the Distinguished Fellowship Program Director Award,” says Dr. Cannella. “This career achievement award validates the effort, dedication and enthusiasm that drive my passion for education. I am humbled to be included among the former recipients of this award, who have inspired many program directors, including myself.”
Dr. van der Heijde
Distinguished International Rheumatology Professional Award
The Distinguished International Rheumatology Professional Award is awarded to a rheumatologist or rheumatology health professional outside the U.S. and Canada for exceptional contributions in public service and advocacy to the global rheumatology community. This year’s recipient is Désirée van der Heijde, MD, PhD, professor of rheumatology, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands.
“I am greatly honored to receive this award from my North American colleagues,” says Dr. van der Heijde. “My gratitude goes to all my worldwide collaborators who inspired me and worked with me on the various topics over the years.”
Dr. van der Heijde obtained her medical degree in 1986 from Catholic University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She completed her PhD in 1991 and became a board-certified rheumatologist in 1993. Following a one-year appointment in Sweden in 1993, she joined the Department of Rheumatology at the University Hospital Maastricht, The Netherlands, until 2007, when she took up her current position. Since 2007, she has also been affiliated with Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Oslo.
Her major research interest is in the methodology of outcomes assessment and its application in clinical research. Specific areas of interest are radiographic scoring methods in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and spondyloarthritis, as well as scoring of magnetic resonance imaging in spondyloarthritis. She played a key role in the development and validation of multiple outcome instruments, such as the disease activity score (DAS) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) DAS (ASDAS), Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society Health Index (ASAS HI) for axSpA, and modified Sharp method for RA and psoriatic arthritis. She was the supervisor of 34 successful PhD students.
Dr. van der Heijde was the president of ASAS from 1995 to 2012. She was the chair of the EULAR Standing Committee for Clinical Affairs (currently Quality of Care Committee) and the ACR-EULAR liaison officer between 2011 and 2019. She has been an active member of Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) since its start in 1992. She received the Gosling award for the best PhD thesis in 1993, the prestigious Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology for her scientific contributions to rheumatology in 2011, a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Ghent, Belgium, in 2012 and the Jan van Breemen medal in 2017. She is an honorary member of EULAR.
Dr. van der Heijde has published more than 1,050 papers, as well as chapters in leading rheumatology textbooks. Her H-index is 156, and she has been recognized as Clarivate’s highly cited researcher since 2014. She is editor of Hochberg’s Rheumatology textbook, associate editor of Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and a member of the editorial board of RMD Open and Journal of Rheumatology. (For more information about Dr. van der Heijde, see https://www.the-rheumatologist.org/article/dsire-van-der-heijde-md-phd-a-key-driver-of-treatment-advances.)
Dr. Seo
Distinguished Service Award
The ACR Distinguished Service Award was presented to Philip Seo, MD, MHS, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and physician editor for UpToDate, for outstanding and sustained service to the ACR.
A graduate of Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., and Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, Dr. Seo completed his internship and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he also served as an assistant chief of service of the Barker Firm. He subsequently joined the Johns Hopkins Division of Rheumatology as a postdoctoral fellow and earned a Master of Health Science degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was the director of the Johns Hopkins Vasculitis Center and the director of the Johns Hopkins Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program for 11 years.
Widely recognized as an authority on the assessment and management of the systemic vasculitides, Dr. Seo has lectured extensively on this topic throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is a recipient of both the Distinguished Clinical Scholar Award from the ACR and a Clinician Scholar Educator Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation.
He is also known for his role as the third physician editor of The Rheumatologist. During his tenure, The Rheumatologist received seven Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX), including two Grand Awards—one for his monthly column, and a second for COVID-19 coverage.
Dr. Seo has served on multiple ACR committees, including the Committee on Training and Workforce Solutions, the Annual Meeting Planning Committee, the Membership and Awards Committee, the Vasculitis Guidelines Taskforce and the Virtual Rheumatology Program for Fellows-in-Training Taskforce. He has also served as a co-chair of the ACR’s In-Training Examination Taskforce, the Annual Meeting Review Course and the Non-ANCA Vasculitis Abstract Selection Committee.
Currently, Dr. Seo is a member of ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium Committee. He is also an associate editor of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Specialty Board in Rheumatology and co-editor of Clinical Innovation in Rheumatology: Past, Present, and Future, and Masterclass in Medicine: Lessons from the Experts.
“When I was the physician editor of The Rheumatologist, I learned a lot about the important role played by the many dedicated, creative ACR members who volunteer their time and talents to help the College achieve its goals,” says Dr. Seo. “I’m therefore particularly honored to receive this recognition from my peers, knowing that many ACR members are equally deserving of this award. My work with the ACR has transformed my life in ways I could have never anticipated; it has been a privilege to contribute to just some of the ACR’s many important initiatives.”
Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award
The Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award recognizes the importance of the mentor/mentee relationship. This award honors active ACR or ARP members for their contributions to the rheumatology profession through outstanding and ongoing mentoring. This year, the award was presented to Diane Lacaille, MD, FRCPC, MHSc, and Ted Mikuls, MD, MSPH.
Cr. Lacaille
Dr. Lacaille is scientific director of Arthritis Research Canada, headquartered in Vancouver, as well as a professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver. She has a rheumatology practice in Vancouver and holds the Mary Pack Chair in Rheumatology Research from UBC and the Arthritis Society Canada. She completed medical school and internal medicine training at McGill University, Montreal, and her rheumatology training and a master’s degree in health sciences, clinical epidemiology, at UBC.
Dr. Lacaille’s research focuses on two areas:
- Studying the impact of arthritis on employment and preventing work disability. To that effect, she developed Making It Work, an online program helping people with arthritis deal with employment issues, and demonstrated, in a randomized, controlled trial, the program’s effectiveness at improving presenteeism and reducing absenteeism. This program meets a huge unmet need in the health services available to people with arthritis.
- Using population-based administrative health data for British Columbia to conduct pharmaco-epidemiology studies and evaluate the quality of healthcare services received by people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Her research has drawn attention to the impact of rheumatoid arthritis and its treatment on comorbidities/complications and the importance of controlling inflammation, not only to prevent joint damage, but also to prevent systemic complications of inflammation.
To improve the alarming gaps in care Dr. Lacaille identified, she developed and tested innovative strategies to improve quality of care and health equity, including community-based research with Indigenous communities to co-develop and test culturally safe arthritis services. Her research has been supported by peer-reviewed grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Arthritis Society Canada and the Canadian Rheumatology Association.
Dr. Lacaille has served on numerous university, national and international committees, including committees of the ACR (Young Investigator Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Quality of Care, Quality Measures Subcommittee and chair of the Criteria Subcommittee), the Canadian Rheumatology Association (Access to Care Committee, Scientific Committee) and CIHR (review panels, chair of the Institute Advisory Board of the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis).
Throughout her career, Dr. Lacaille has been passionate about mentoring the next generation of scientists and clinicians. Many of the graduate students and early career scientists whom she mentored have had successful academic careers and taken on leadership positions. As Arthritis Research Canada’s scientific director, she created its arthritis trainee network, which supports the academic growth of graduate students from seven universities and multiple disciplines relevant to arthritis care and research.
Supporting women in academia has been one of her priorities. She developed and implemented the Success in Academia Program for Women in Medicine as part of her role as chair of the Equity Committee for UBC’s Department of Medicine. In addition, she has served as an informal mentor for many clinical rheumatologists and early career scientists in the Division of Rheumatology and at Arthritis Research Canada.
“Working alongside young talented individuals and watching their growth and success is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job,” says Dr. Lacaille. “I have been privileged to work with many bright and extremely talented trainees. Their curiosity, enthusiasm and accomplishments are truly inspiring!”
Dr. Mikuls
Ted Mikuls, MD, MSPH, is the Stokes-Shackleford Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, and a staff physician and researcher at the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System, Omaha. He completed medical school and his internal medicine training at UNMC and then completed his rheumatology fellowship training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“To be recognized by the College and by my rheumatology colleagues in this way is both humbling and gratifying,” says Dr. Mikuls. “It is especially gratifying to know that the nomination for this award came from both mentees and mentors whose opinions I greatly value.”
Dr. Mikuls’ research interests are focused on disease epidemiology, pathogenesis and outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis and gout. He currently receives active research support from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as from industry, and serves as a director of the Professional Development Core for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences-funded Great Plains IdeA-CTR. He founded and has directed the national Veterans’ Affairs Rheumatoid Arthritis Registry (VARA) since its inception. During his career, Dr. Mikuls has mentored more than 70 trainees, including medical and graduate students, residents, fellows and early career faculty.
Dr. Mikuls has held past leadership roles with both the ACR and Rheumatology Research Foundation including chairing both the ACR Practice Guidelines Subcommittee and the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Council. He currently serves on the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Dr. Kuhn
Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award
The Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award is given to physician-scientists who are within 12 years of post-rheumatology certifying examination eligibility and who have made outstanding and promising independent contributions to basic, translational or clinical research in the field of rheumatology. This year’s recipient is Kristi Kuhn, MD, PhD, Scoville Endowed Chair in Arthritis Research, head of the Division of Rheumatology and professor of medicine and of immunology and microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora.
Dr. Kuhn received her medical degree and doctorate in immunology from the University of Colorado. She then completed her internal medicine residency, chief residency and rheumatology fellowship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis.
In 2013, Dr. Kuhn returned to the University of Colorado to establish her independent research program examining the interactions between the intestinal microbiome and immune responses of inflammatory arthritis. Dr. Kuhn’s work has linked novel arthritis-inducing bacteria and products of bacterial metabolism to the development of both rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis in addition to demonstrating direct migration of lymphocytes from the gut to the joint.
During her career, Dr. Kuhn received the Medical and Graduate Student Achievement Award (2005), the Marshall J. Schiff, MD, Memorial Fellow Research Award (2012) and the Distinguished Fellow Award (2013) from the ACR and Rheumatology Research Foundation. Dr. Kuhn has served on the Committee on Research, which she chaired, the Annual Meeting Planning Committee, and the Government Affairs Committee for the ACR, and she has served on the Scientific Advisory Council, Development Advisory Council and Board of Directors for the Foundation.
“I am deeply honored to receive the ACR Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award and be included in the company of many accomplished scientists who received this award before me,” says Dr. Kuhn. “Like Dr. Kunkel, I am intensely interested in the immunologic pathways leading to rheumatologic disease. I hope that our ongoing work will impact our understanding of RA and SpA. I am grateful for the continued mentorship, support and collaboration of colleagues including Mike Holers, Jane Buckner, Bill Robinson and Michael Weisman. Additionally, I am thankful for my mentees, Meagan Chriswell, Adam Lefferts, Adam Berlinberg, Brenda Seymour and Sarah Danielson, who laid the foundational science of our research program.”
Dr. Maricic
Paulding Phelps Award
Michael Maricic, MD, a rheumatologist in private practice at Catalina Pointe Rheumatology, Tucson, Ariz., is the recipient of this year’s Paulding Phelps Award, bestowed on a clinical rheumatologist for outstanding service to patients, community and the practice of medicine.
“I am extremely honored to be the recipient of this year’s Paulding Phelps award, which I owe to all of the outstanding mentors I have had,” says Dr. Maricic. “This emphasizes the critical role of the ACR and the Rheumatology Research Foundation in continuing to inspire and support clinical trainees.”
Dr. Maricic completed his undergraduate education at Brown University, Providence, R.I., and medical degree at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. His postdoctoral training included residency, including as chief medical resident, in internal medicine at Hackensack University Medical Center, New Jersey, and a rheumatology fellowship at the University of Arizona, Tucson, under Eric P. Gall, MD.
Dr. Maricic later served as head of the Section of Rheumatology and as program director for both the internal medicine residency and the rheumatology fellowship programs at the University of Arizona. He has chaired both the Curriculum Committee and the Graduate Medical Education Advisory Committee. Dr. Maricic has received the Dean’s Teaching Award for Excellence, the Virginia Furrow Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education and was elected Alpha Omega Alpha by the medical student class. The internal medicine house staff named him the Outstanding Attending in both 2003 and 2004. At the time he left the university, he was an associate professor of clinical medicine. He continues mentoring internal medicine residents who perform rheumatology rotations in his private practice.
A fellow of the ACR, Dr. Maricic has a long history of service to the College. He is a past chair of both the Education and Audiovisual Aids committees, and past member of the Committee on Rheumatologic Care. He has also been a strong advocate of supporting and funding rheumatology research, clinical educators and fellowship positions at the ACR. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Rheumatology Research Foundation from 2014–2017.
With a strong interest in osteoporosis and the rheumatic diseases, Dr. Maricic has also been active as a member of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the International Society for Clinical Densitometry. He has served as an associate editor and on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Densitometry. He has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed articles on osteoporosis and rheumatology, numerous chapters, and has co-edited textbooks on Decision Making in Internal Medicine, Clinical Care in the Rheumatic Diseases and Bone Disease in Rheumatology.
Patrice Fusillo is a writer and editor based in Oakland, Calif.
