While their groundbreaking contributions to the science and practice of respiratory medicine were in the spotlight during the Respiratory Health Awards Ceremony on Sunday afternoon at the ATS 2025 International Conference, the recipients of some of the Society’s highest honors also shared with attendees in San Francisco inspirational messages for career success and overcoming challenging times .

“Find your causes that are far greater than yourself and pursue them with unparalleled passion,” said Juan C. Celedón, MD, DrPH, ATSF, as he delivered the J. Burns Amberson Lecture. “Surround yourself with people who love you, and love them back. Be a lifelong learner. Teach and support the next generation. And if you do all this, you can be at peace knowing that when the candle of your life is extinguished, others will fight to ensure that the ideals you hold so dear will shine ever brighter in an eternal flame.”

The ceremony also recognized this year’s Edward Livingston Trudeau Medalist, Susan S. Redline, MD, MPH, and the two Distinguished Achievement Award recipients, Lynn M. Schnapp, MD, ATSF, and Anne-Karina T. Perl, MSci, PhD, ATSF.

J. Burns Amberson Lecture

Named for an international authority on chest disease and tuberculosis, the Amberson Lecture recognizes major international lifetime contributions to clinical or basic research that has advanced the fundamental understanding of basic, translational, or clinical approaches to respiratory disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders. It also recognizes exemplary professionalism, collegiality, and citizenship through mentorship and leadership in the ATS community.

Dr. Celedón, division chief of pulmonary medicine at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Niels K. Jerne Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, has focused on identifying genetic and environmental determinants of asthma, particularly in racial and ethnic minorities throughout his career.

“Using a non-invasive approach that generated three transcriptomic profiles in nasal epithelium, we could identify three distinct endotypes [of asthma] in children and young adults. Contrary to common assumptions, T2-low endotypes were more common than T2-high asthma in these cohorts, which included the two groups most heavily affected with asthma, which are often not included in this data: Puerto Ricans and African Americans,” he explained in his lecture, “A Nosy Look Into Asthma Disparities.”

Dr. Celedón and colleagues have already conducted analyses of integrative omics, looking at endotype-specific risk factors. Next, they plan to examine the overlap and temporal changes.

“We also look at environment, and two exposures to be particularly interested in are violence and related stress,” he said. “We and others have shown that chronic stress as a result of exposure to violence at the individual, family, or community levels, or after wars or natural disasters, can make asthma worse — true in kids, true in adults — and that perhaps sustaining stress can make a healthy individual develop asthma.”

The next logical question in this work, Dr. Celedón said, is whether chronic psychosocial stress is associated with a specific type of asthma.

Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal

Given in honor of a founder and the first president of the American Lung Association, the Trudeau Medal recognizes major contributions to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of lung disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders through leadership in research, education, or clinical care, and acknowledges exemplary professionalism, collegiality, and citizenship in the ATS community. It is the highest honor bestowed by the ATS.

Dr. Redline pioneered research to identify novel risk factors for sleep apnea in adults and children, including genetic and metabolomic markers, inflammation, insulin resistance, neighborhood disadvantage, environmental tobacco smoke, poor air quality, and more.  

In 2013, with the support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she also established the National Sleep Research Resource, the largest freely accessible resource for sharing well-annotated and harmonized sleep signal and summary data with trainees and investigators across the globe. This repository catalyzed the modern era of sleep research in sleep medicine, supporting scientific and clinical advances that have changed the lives of millions of patients worldwide.

“These data help identify novel metrics for sleep apnea that vary by sex, age, and other factors, suggesting that sleep apnea, which for over 40 years was considered to be a disease defined by a simple metric, Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI), actually represents several distinct disease processes,” said Dr. Redline, the Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and director of Sleep Medicine Epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Looking to the future of sleep medicine, Dr. Redline encouraged all of those who are just starting their careers in the field to be open to the many people they will learn from and to be supportive of their peers.

“And know that while there are ups and downs, you will learn from both,” she said. “As long as you ask questions that you find interesting and important, you will likely find gratification in your work and you will do good in the world.”

Dr. Redline is currently working to define a new taxonomy for sleep apnea that reflects its underlying heterogeneity, with the hope that it will provide a foundation for precision sleep medicine.

Distinguished Achievement Award

Individuals who are honored with the Distinguished Achievement Award have made outstanding major contributions that advance the missions of the ATS. They have made substantial contributions to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of lung disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders through advocacy, training, and mentorship.

Dr. Schnapp is the George R. and Elaine Love Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. She is an established National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded investigator in cell and molecular biology, with clinical and research expertise in ARDS, recognized for her long-standing commitment to mentorship, career development, and increasing the representation of women and underrepresented minorities in medicine. Her national leadership experience includes numerous positions in the ATS, including past president, and she currently serves as a member of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Advisory Council.

While accepting her award, Dr. Schnapp recalled starting her pulmonary career as a fellow at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the influence her mentors and the ATS have had on her professional trajectory.

“[San Francisco] is where I had the privilege of learning from mentors at UCSF in San Francisco General [Hospital], who taught me to think beyond the four walls of the hospital, that our work should face outward toward our communities and our world,” Dr. Schnapp said. “And that mindset is what drew me to the ATS, as well as to leadership roles as division chief and department chair, to be able to give back, to pay it forward, and to lift others up the way I was lifted.”

Dr. Perl is a developmental biologist and a recognized leader in pulmonary science with more than 20 years of experience at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She has earned national and international recognition for her contributions to pulmonary biology, education, and advocacy. Her current work centers around lung mesenchymal heterogeneity and functions in significantly advanced fibroblast biology in lung development, injury, and repair. She is also an associate editor for the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology and is committed to mentorship and leadership.

“I’m deeply honored and, truthfully, really overwhelmed to receive this recognition from a society I respect so profoundly, a community that has shaped not only my scientific path, but my sense of purpose,” Dr. Perl said. “I’ve been fortunate to walk this journey with brilliant mentors who believed in me, trainers, collaborators, and trainees who challenge and inspire me. I’m also grateful for colleagues who remind me every day that science is not about discovery; it’s about how we carry each other through the uncertainty it demands.”