Exemplary contributions to the field of respiratory health were recognized with daily award presentations during the ATS 2022 International Conference. The Opening Ceremony on Saturday, May 14, included the presentation of the Jo Rae Wright Award for Outstanding Service, the Public Service Award, and the World Lung Health Award.

On Sunday, May 15, the Awards Ceremony featured the J. Burns Amberson Lecture, the Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal, and the Distinguished Achievement Awards.

The four recipients of the Recognition Award for Scientific Accomplishments were the featured speakers at the Recognition Awards on Monday, May 16.

The Outstanding Educator Award, the Outstanding Clinician Award, and the Research Innovation and Translation Achievement Award were given during the Plenary Session on Tuesday, May 17.

A wall between the Poster Hall and the Exhibit Hall and a display in the lobby of Moscone West also featured awardee names and photos.

This year’s recipients are listed below.

EDWARD LIVINGSTON TRUDEAU MEDAL

Courtney Broaddus, MD
University of California, San Francisco, Calif.

Courtney Broaddus, MD, is the 2022 recipient of the highest honor bestowed by the ATS, the Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal, given in honor of a founder and the first president of the American Lung Association. It is awarded in recognition of lifelong major contributions to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of lung disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders through leadership in research, education, or clinical care.

After earning a bachelor’s degree at Duke University, Dr. Broaddus attended medical school and received residency training at the University of Pennsylvania before arriving at the University of California, San Francisco for an academic pulmonary fellowship. Research on pleural physiology with Norman Staub, MD, led to a rewriting of a chapter in the first edition of “Murray & Nadel’s Textbook of Respiratory Medicine,” leading to a career-long association with the textbook, of which Dr. Broaddus is now editor-in-chief. She later studied pleural mesothelioma with an emphasis on in vitro 3-D models. For 20 years, she served as chief of the Pulmonary Division at the San Francisco General Hospital. Her passion is to support the “Murray & Nadel’s Textbook” as a living, premier resource for the pulmonary community.

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J. BURNS AMBERSON LECTURE

Naftali Kaminski, MD, ATSF
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

Named for James Burns Amberson, an international authority on chest disease and tuberculosis, this lecture recognizes major international lifetime contributions to clinical or basic research that have advanced the fundamental understanding of basic, translational, or clinical approaches to respiratory disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders.

This year’s honoree is Naftali Kaminski, MD, ATSF, the Boehringer-Ingelheim Endowed Professor of Internal Medicine and chief of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Kaminski will deliver the Amberson Lecture, Charting a Road Map to Curing Human Pulmonary Fibrosis, during the Awards Ceremony on Sunday.

As a pioneer of the application of high throughput profiling technologies and systems biology approaches to human lung diseases, Dr. Kaminski discovered novel and reproducible outcome-predictive peripheral blood and bronchoalveolar lavage biomarkers and molecular mechanisms with therapeutic implications. His lab recently published multiple lung disease cell atlases, including the largest single-cell RNA sequencing atlas of the human idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis lung.

Dr. Kaminski received his medical degree at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel; completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Hadassah Mount Scopus University Hospital, Jerusalem; and completed a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel. He completed basic science training at the Lung Biology Center at UCSF and training in functional genomics and microarray technology at the Functional Genomics laboratory at Roche Bioscience. After his fellowship in 2000, Dr. Kaminski was appointed the head of functional genomics at Sheba Medical Center before being recruited to be the founding director of the Simmons Center at the University of Pittsburgh in 2002.

Dr. Kaminski has authored more than 330 research papers, review articles, and book chapters, and has been an invited speaker at national and international conferences. He has been active at the ATS, serving as program chair and assembly chair for Respiratory Cell & Molecular Biology.

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DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Meilan K. Han, MD, MS, ATSF, and Francine Comi, BS, are the recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes outstanding contribution to the advancement of the ATS mission through a single major accomplishment or a cumulative impact on the field. Awardees have substantially contributed to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of lung disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders through leadership in research, education, or clinical care.

Meilan K. Han, MD, MS, ATSF
University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Dr. Han is a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Michigan. She received her medical degree from the University of Washington and completed her residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Michigan. Her research has focused on COPD, helping to validate imaging techniques to phenotype patients. She is currently a deputy editor for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and a member of the Global Obstructive Lung Disease scientific committee charged with developing management guidance for COPD. She is the author of the book “Breathing Lessons,” a guide to respiratory health for the public.

Francine Comi, BS
American Thoracic Society, New York, N.Y.

Ms. Comi is the senior director of the ATS Scientific Meetings and Conferences Unit. She began working for the American Lung Association in 1981 as a secretary for the American Thoracic Society department, assisting the committees responsible for organizing the scientific program for the ATS portion of the Annual Meeting for the ALA/ATS.

Within four years, Ms. Comi was named head of the unit planning the Annual Meeting. Under her leadership, the Scientific Meetings and Conferences Unit has grown to five staff members and developed and implemented the scientific programs, management processes, and resources for the ATS International Conference. The team successfully re-launched the 2020 and 2021 conferences as virtual programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic and switched back to programming an in-person conference for ATS 2022. Ms. Comi has received two Presidential Commendations for her role in conference planning.

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RECOGNITION AWARD FOR SCIENTIFIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The Recognition Award for Scientific Accomplishments honors up to four individuals each year for outstanding scientific research contributions in basic or clinical arenas to enhance the understanding, prevention, and treatment of respiratory disease, critical illness, or sleep disorders. This year’s recipients will be the featured speakers at the Recognition Awards on Monday.

Carolyn S. Calfee, MD, MSCR
University of California, San Francisco, Calif.

Carolyn S. Calfee, MD, MSCR, will present Molecular Phenotyping of ARDS: Moving Towards Precision Critical Care. Dr. Calfee is a professor of medicine and anesthesia, University of California, San Francisco, where she attends in the intensive care units. She received her medical degree from University of Pennsylvania and completed her residency, chief residency, and fellowship at UCSF. Her primary academic focus is the pathogenesis and treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome, with special interest in molecular phenotypes and precision medicine in critical care, the role of environmental exposures in acute lung injury, and novel treatments for ARDS and sepsis. 

Erica L. Herzog, MD, PhD
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

Erica L. Herzog, MD, PhD, will discuss the antifibrotic benefit of the null hypothesis. She is the John Slade Ely Professor of Medicine and Pathology at Yale School of Medicine, where she directs Yale’s ILD Center of Excellence and serves as associate dean for student research. Her preclinical discoveries at the intersection of innate immunity and pulmonary fibrosis reveal the potential of targeting a range of diverse processes such as macrophage activation, cytosolic DNA sensing, and adrenergic innervation for this condition. Her work has been published in Science, Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine; continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2005; and recognized by the ATS with a research grant in 2010 and the Jo Rae Wright Award in 2015. Dr. Herzog strives to promote respiratory health by mentoring the next generation of fibrosis researchers and illuminating intervenable and fundamental disease mechanisms that can be translated into cost effective and well-tolerated treatments for patients worldwide.   

Melanie Königshoff, MD, PhD, ATSF
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Melanie Königshoff, MD, PhD, ATSF, professor of medicine and the associate chief of research in the Pulmonary Division at the University of Pittsburgh, will discuss impaired regeneration in chronic lung disease. Throughout her career, Dr. Königshoff has focused on mechanisms of lung regeneration in relation to chronic lung disease. Her work has substantially contributed to the understanding of the impact of impaired lung epithelial cell phenotypes and the role of Wnt signaling as a novel therapeutic target for lung disease. Her academic work has led to seminal discoveries and more than 120 scholarly publications. Dr. Königshoff has consistently received extramural research funding, including individual and center grant awards from the NIH.

Dr. Königshoff earned her medical doctoral degrees in Giessen and Hamburg, Germany. She joined the Comprehensive Pneumology Center in Munich, Germany, where she rose through the ranks and acted as head of the Research Unit Lung Repair and Regeneration. She was recruited to the Pulmonary Division of the University of Colorado in 2017 as a professor of medicine before being recruited in 2020 by the University of Pittsburgh.

Irfan Rahman, PhD, ATSF
University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.

Irfan Rahman, PhD, ATSF, will present Smoking, Vaping, and the Lung: Stress to Disease. After postdoctoral work at the University of Miami, Georgetown University, and the University of Edinburgh (junior faculty), Scotland, he joined the University of Rochester, where he is the Dean’s Professor of Environmental Medicine, Medicine (Pulmonary), and Public Health Sciences. Dr. Rahman’s research interests include oxidative stress, inflammation, molecular clock, mitochondrial dysfunction, epigenetics, and cellular senescence by tobacco products and e-cigarettes in lung, as well as oral/periodontal diseases. He has published extensively, ranking among Highly Cited Researchers by Thomson Reuters and as No. 16 out of 52,718 active respiratory and allergy researchers by Ioannidis et al 2020. He is the editor and author of the book, “Inflammation, Aging, Diet and Nutrition.” He served as a past president for the Inhalation Respiratory Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology and as the chair of Lung Aging Interest Group of the ATS RCMB.

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OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR AWARD

Ilene M. Rosen, MD, MSCE
University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa

The Outstanding Educator Award recognizes lifetime achievements and excellence in clinical or research education and mentoring in the fields of pulmonary, critical care, or sleep medicine. This year’s honoree is Ilene M. Rosen, MD, MSCE, associate professor of medicine, assistant dean for graduate medical education, and vice chair for education, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Rosen received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University, and her medical degree and master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also completed her postgraduate training, including pulmonary and critical care medicine and sleep medicine fellowships. She was an associate program director for the internal medicine residency and program director for Penn’s sleep medicine fellowship. She has served on the Residency Review Committee for Internal Medicine and as president of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Dr. Rosen’s research focuses on improving access to sleep medicine clinical care. She leads an NIH-funded effort to develop novel tools to facilitate delivery of sleep medicine education and broaden the workforce of providers who can diagnose and treat sleep disorders.

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PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD

Adam Edward Lang, PharmD
McDonald Army Health Center, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Fort Eustis, Va.

The Public Service Award is presented in recognition of contributions to public and population health equity related to lung diseases, sleep health, or critical care. This year’s recipient, Adam Edward Lang, PharmD, serves as chief of health management and deputy chief of the Department of Pharmacy at McDonald Army Health Center at Fort Eustis. He is also an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and a member of the CHEST editorial board.

He led the implementation of a novel nicotine-free policy for U.S. Army trainees and has published a framework to implement such a policy across the U.S. military. He also developed and implemented a tobacco treatment campaign designed to support full telehealth capabilities in March 2020 in anticipation of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce transmission and severity of disease. Dr. Lang has published on preventive medicine and public health in various journals, often focusing on promotion of appropriate treatment of nicotine dependence and impactful policy change.

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WORLD LUNG HEALTH AWARD

Laurence Huang, MD, ATSF
University of California, San Francisco, Calif.

The 2022 World Lung Health Award recognizes Laurence Huang, MD, ATSF, professor of medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and chief of the HIV/AIDS Chest Clinic, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. This award honors contributions to improving world lung health in the area of translational or implementation research, delivery of health care, continuing education or care of patients with lung disease, or related political advocacy with a special emphasis on efforts that have the potential to eliminate gender, racial, ethnic, or economic health disparities.

Dr. Huang is a clinical-translational researcher with a long-standing research program in HIV-associated lung diseases, focused on opportunistic pneumonias, the lung microbiome, and COPD. His program strives to conduct the highest quality research, provide direct clinical benefit to patients, and facilitate the career development of members of the research team. In 2007, he started a research collaboration in Kampala, Uganda, along with colleagues William Worodria, Samuel Yoo, Luke Davis, Adithya Cattamanchi, and Alfred Andama. This collaboration has enrolled and followed over 5,200 participants and published over 60 papers. It also has established bronchoscopy capacity in three hospitals in Kampala and full pulmonary function testing, including DLCO (diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide) measurement.

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JO RAE WRIGHT AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING SCIENCE

Lucas Donovan, MD, MS
University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

The Jo Rae Wright Award for Outstanding Science is a tribute to the work of early career respiratory health professionals. Aimed at tomorrow’s leaders in science, the award recognizes demonstrated potential for significant achievement and contributions among those who are beyond postdoctoral fellowship but not above the rank of assistant professor or the equivalent. Lucas Donovan, MD, MS, a core investigator in health services and assistant professor of medicine, VA Puget Sound and University of Washington, is this year’s honoree.

Through pragmatic trials and comprehensive evaluations, Dr. Donovan’s research aims to improve access to care in ways that maximize quality, efficiency, and patient experience. His work has informed nationwide efforts to streamline specialty care within the Department of Veterans Affairs, and he has been a nominee for the Health System Impact Award. Dr. Donovan is currently supported by a VA Career Development Award, and he recently received independent funding from a VA Merit Award to conduct a nationwide randomized trial of a remote lifestyle intervention among patients with obstructive sleep apnea and obesity.

Dr. Donovan received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and completed postgraduate training in internal medicine with fellowships in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Washington.

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RESEARCH INNOVATION AND TRANSLATION ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Colin E. Sullivan, MD, PhD
University of Sydney, Australia

The inventor of the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure system, Colin Sullivan, MD, PhD, emeritus professor of medicine, University of Sydney, Australia, is a leading international academic, clinician, and researcher in sleep and breathing disorders. His 1980 invention revolutionized the study, understanding, and treatment of sleep apnea, and he pioneered the use of CPAP and non-invasive ventilatory support to manage and reverse sleep-induced respiratory failure in various pulmonary diseases. His early work with Professor Eliot Phillipson in Toronto in the late 1970s identified the critical role of arousal and key physiological changes underpinning the control of breathing in sleep, and he was a founder of ResMed in 1989 with Peter Farrell. A respiratory physician with research training in experimental physiology in the mid-1970s with Professor David Read, Dr. Sullivan established the first clinical sleep facility in Sydney in 1979, and the Centre for Respiratory Failure and Sleep Disorders at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

The Research Innovation and Translation Achievement Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of respiratory research focused on specific innovations to improve health by advancing practice, policy, and health care delivery. Awardees may represent academia, industry, nonprofits, or government. Individual accomplishments are recognized along with the recipient’s role as a leader in pursuing team science through collaborative approaches, both interdisciplinary and inter-institutional.

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OUTSTANDING CLINICIAN AWARD

Shazia M. Jamil, MD, ATSF
Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, Calif.

Shazia M. Jamil, MD, ATSF, head of academic affairs in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine at Scripps Clinic and associate clinical professor at University of California, San Diego, has been named this year’s Outstanding Clinician. The award recognizes a pulmonary, critical care, or sleep clinician who has made substantial contributions in the clinical care of patients with lung disease on a local or national level. Awardees spend 75 percent or more of their time providing direct patient care. Honorees also must be recognized by patients and families as a caring and dedicated health care provider and by peers as having made substantial contributions to the clinical care of patients with respiratory disease.

Dr. Jamil received her medical degree from Aga Khan Medical School, Pakistan; completed her residency at the University of Southern California; and completed a pulmonary critical care fellowship, a molecular cell biology post-doctoral fellowship, and sleep medicine training at UCSD. For the past 15 years, she has developed clinical programs, curricula, and hands-on-skills sessions at the local, regional, and national levels to bridge the knowledge gap between community and academic clinicians in the hope of providing evidence-based medical care to all patients. Dr. Jamil has created numerous multidisciplinary protocols for management of complex liver, transplant, and COVID-19 patients. She is the founder of the Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders Clinic, as well as the San Diego Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine Conference, which brings together academic and private physicians. She co-founded and chairs the ATS Rapid Response Document Series publishing in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which provides practical information on emerging lung health issues for health care professionals and patients, publishing one of the first public health and clinical documents in the United States on SARS-CoV-2. She has chaired the Sleep Core Curriculum as a member of the ATS Education Committee and chairs the California Thoracic Society’s Education Committee.

Nominate a Colleague

The ATS Awards Committee encourages nominations from all respiratory health disciplines and for respiratory health professionals at all stages of their careers. More information about Respiratory Health Awards for ATS 2023 will be available in the coming weeks.