APHA's Public Health Awards Ceremony and Luncheon recognized individuals who received the association's most distinguished awards. APHA honors those who exemplify professionalism and dedication to the field of public health.
This event was held on Monday, Oct. 28, 12:30-2 p.m. and is a paid event.
Meet the 2024 Award Winners
APHA Distinguished Public Health Legislator of the Year Award
Recognizes a legislator at the federal, state or local levels who strongly supports of public health.
Recipient: U.S. Representative James Clyburn, D-SC
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APHA Executive Director Citation
Honors an APHA member for their exceptional service to the Association
Recipient: C. William Keck, MD, MPH, Professor Emeritus, Northeast Ohio Medical University
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Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health
Honors an individual for their distinguished service to advance public health knowledge and practice in the field of research, administration, education, technical services or a specialty field of public health practice. The Sedgwick Memorial Award is the Association’s oldest and most prestigious honor.
Recipient: Barbara Cole, RN, MSN, PHN, Director of Disease Control, Riverside University Health System-Public Health
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APHA Award for Excellence
Recognizes an individual for making a significant and well-recognized contributions to the improvement of community health by utilizing scientific knowledge or innovative organizational strategies.
Recipient: Linda A. Teplin, PhD, Vice Chair and Owen L. Coon Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Director, Health Disparities and Public Policy, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
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David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health
Honors an individual who has made outstanding contributions to public health through science–based advocacy. The award is a tribute to David P. Rall, MD, PhD, whose scientific-based advocacy efforts advanced public health and prevention across many fields and in many forms.
Recipient: Emily E. Nenon, MPA, Director, Alaska Government Relations Director, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
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Victor Sidel and Barry Levy Award for Peace
Recognizes an APHA member who has made outstanding contributions to preventing war and promoting international peace. APHA past presidents, Victor W. Sidel, MD, and Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, endowed the award in 2008.
Recipient: Yara M. Asi, PhD, BS, MA Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida
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Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award
Honors an individual who has worked toward social justice for underserved and disadvantaged populations. The award is named after the late Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, past president of the American Public Health Association.
Recipient: Perry N. Halkitis PhD, MS, MPH, Dean and Hunterdon Professor of Public Health and Health Equity, School of Public Health, Rutgers University
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Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work
Honors a local health officer of a county, city or other unit of local government who has demonstrated creative and innovative public health work.
Recipient: Wilma Wooten, MD, MPH, Former Public Health Officer, San Diego County Department of Health
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Ayman El-Mohandes Young Professor Public Health Innovation Award
Recognizes a young public health professional who is making a significant, innovative contribution to the public health field. The award is endowed by Ayman El-Mohandes, MPH, MD, MSc, MBBCh, a former APHA Executive Board member.
Recipient: Heather Tillewein, PhD, MCHES, Assistant Professor, Austin Peay State University
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Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award
Recognizes an individual for their essential role of mentoring in public health and leadership development.
Recipient: Jagdish Khubchandani, MD, PhD, MPH, Professor of Public Health, New Mexico State University
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Giorgio A. Piccagli Leadership Award
Recognizes an APHA student or early-career professional who demonstrates outstanding leadership and initiative. This award acknowledges the lifetime contributions of Giorgio A. Piccagli, a long-standing APHA and Affiliate leader who served in numerous leadership roles.
Recipient: McKenzie Cowlbeck, MPH, OPHA Policy Director, Oklahoma Public Health Association
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APHA Presidential Citation
Recognizes a person or organization in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement of public health or the public health profession.
Recipient: Jackson Public School, Mississippi
Other Special Recognitions
Help Us Help Them: Dream of Wild Health
Martha May Eliot Award
Honors a professional worker from the field of maternal and child health. The award is named after the late Dr. Martha May Eliot. past present of the American Public Health Association and a moving force in APHA’s Maternal and Child Health Section.
Recipient: Elaine Abrams, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, ICAP at Columbia University Medical Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
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Recipient: Kenn Harris, Maternal and Child Health Expert, The Emu Consultants
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Award Recipient Bios
U.S. Representative James Clyburn, D-SC will receive the 2024 APHA Distinguished Public Health Legislator of the Year Award for his commitment to guaranteeing Americans the rights to safety, health and democracy.
The award goes to a lawmaker who has made vital improvements to the public’s health. As chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis from 2019 to 2021, he convened health leaders to examine the nation’s preparedness response for COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccinations. The subcommittee was also tasked with determining which populations were disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and the effectiveness of new legislation to address the illness and future pandemics.
Clyburn is also an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights and for gun violence prevention. He was one of several legislators to introduce the Disarm Hate Act in September 2023, aimed at preventing people convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from owning or purchasing firearms to avoid tragedies such as the June 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine people.
Additionally, as a House member, he has voted in favor of increased funding for health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and for laws that boost public health infrastructure, such as the Affordable Care Act. In his home state, Clyburn is namesake of an annual health equity leadership award and health equity lecture held at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health.
Clyburn has served as a representative for South Carolina’s 6th congressional district since being elected to Congress in 1993.
C. William Keck, MD, MPH, FACPM is the recipient of the 2024 APHA Executive Director Citation for representing APHA in his contributions to public health academia and practice.
The Executive Director Citation is given to an APHA member who furthers the Association’s reach through their outstanding public health service.
Keck is the face of APHA as chair of the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice. The council is a group of two dozen organizations committed to creating and maintaining a capable public health workforce through research, training and education. Throughout his 40 year career, Keck’s own public health work and teaching of community health sciences qualified him to expand the academic health department model, which partners universities with local public health practice. In 1976, he was recruited by what is now Northeast Ohio Medical University to connect the university and the Akron Health Department, which has since merged with other departments to form the Summit County Combined General Health District. Keck has also developed partnerships between four additional Ohio health districts and Northeast Ohio Medical University, where he is a professor emeritus in the department of family and community medicine.
As an APHA member, Keck is a past-president and member of the Ohio Public Health Association. He is a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and a counselor for the Council on Education for Public Health.
Barbara Cole, RN, MSN, PHN, is being honored with APHA’s 2024 Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health for her work in disease prevention through community partnerships, mentorship and promotion of public health policy.
The award, one of APHA’s highest honors, was named in recognition of the late Professor William Thompson Sedgwick, a former APHA president and the head of the department of biological and public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of public health.
Cole has spent over 40 years as a public health nurse for the Riverside County Department of Public Health in California, and is the first nurse to be named the department’s director of disease control. She is recognized for her wraparound work on the control and prevention of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, and ensuring high-risk communities can access treatment and the resources to survive financially if they become ill. On the state level, she has chaired the California Conference of Local Health Officers Communicable Disease Committee and has been a leader on California TB Controllers Association efforts, including a state publication on how to assess infection levels in TB patients.
Nationally, Cole has served as chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis, where she worked on issues such as TB infection control in correctional facilities, TB outbreaks on the U.S.-Mexico border and anti-tuberculosis drug shortages. She has also been a leader and mentor to countless emerging health professionals learning about public health approaches to medical care.
“She fully exemplifies the boots-on-the-ground, shoe-leather public health figure every community deserves, and her enthusiasm and deep commitment to the field is why so many of us, and I count myself as one, were attracted to public health as careers and remain so,” said Cameron Kaiser, MD, MPH, FAAFP, deputy public health officer for the county of San Diego and former public health officer for Riverside County.
Linda A. Teplin, PhD, is the winner of the 2024 APHA Award for Excellence for her lifelong research and influence concerning the long-term health and well-being of incarcerated people in the United States.
This award goes to a person who has made and will continue to make significant achievements in improving public health through the marriage of science and innovation.
Teplin’s career began nearly 50 years ago when she studied the effects of jailing people with mental health issues rather than placing them in mental health institutions. Her research surrounding incarceration endures as the primary investigator of the Northwestern Juvenile Project, where she highlights the U.S. juvenile justice system’s lack of mental health services and its long-term negative effects on incarcerated youth The nearly 30-year-long project has tracked the health outcomes of youth entering Cook County, Illinois’s juvenile justice system and will enter a new chapter in Teplin’s upcoming Next Generation study, which will look at the risk of harmful health behaviors among the children of the original project.
Referenced in Capitol Hill hearings and Supreme Court briefs, Teplin’s work has sounded the alarm on the risks of premature deaths among detained juveniles and how conditions have disproportionately affected people of color. Her research efforts resulted in policy changes such as increased access to community health services, the creation of mental health courts and initial mental screenings for juveniles upon detainment. As a member of the National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness, she has also had a hand in creating new guidelines for how courts should interact with defendants with mental illness.
“The field of public health needs to recognize scholars like Dr. Teplin, who continue to work tirelessly to ensure that national health policy decisions are guided by the best available scientific evidence,” said Margarita Alegría, PhD, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Disparities Research Unit and a professor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry. “Her interdisciplinary approach influences fields in public health and beyond, demonstrating the value of methodologically rigorous research in addressing disparities.”
Teplin is the director of the health disparities and public policy program in the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is also the university’s Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Emily E. Nenon, MPA, is being honored with the David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health for her work in building partnerships to advocate for tobacco control, access to care and cancer prevention.
Named for Rall, whose scientific research was a boon to prevention and environmental health policy, the award is given to a mid-career public health professional who has used science-based advocacy to influence policy change.
As the Alaska government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Nenon pushed for state law that today helps cancer patients use telehealth to connect with cancer specialists and broadens insurance coverage for treatment and screenings. Nenon uses her role within the network to host an annual policy forum to convene the state’s public health community and find solutions for gaps in cancer prevention and care.
Nenon is also recognized for building partnerships with Alaska health care advocates to promote evidence-based tobacco control policies, such as Alaska’s Smokefree Workplace Law and Alaska’s Comprehensive Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. An advocate of Medicaid expansion, Nenon is also a founding member of Alaskans Together for Medicaid, a collective of over 30 health care groups working at covering underinsured and uninsured Alaskans.
She is a skilled facilitator with a knack for bringing people together around a common goal,” said Andrea Fenaughty, PhD, deputy chief of the section of chronic disease prevention and health promotion within the Alaska Department of Health’s Division of Public Health. “She excels at translating complex scientific material to clear, straightforward policy recommendations. She has become a trusted source among public health professionals and policymakers alike.
Yara M. Asi, PhD, is the recipient of the 2024 Victor Sidel and Barry Levy Award for Peace for research that raises awareness about human rights violations during conflict, particularly in the Middle East.
The award is given to an individual whose accomplishments focus on promoting global peace and preventing war. It is endowed by two APHA past presidents Victor W. Sidel, MD and Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, known for their research on the devastating public health consequences of war.
With a research focus on global health and human rights, Asi has been sought after globally for her research on Palestinian health given her family’s ties to the West Bank. Earlier this year, Hopkins University Press published her book “How War Kills, The Overlooked Threats to Our Health” about the negative impact of war on public health, from the risk of disease outbreaks to the destruction of infrastructure. Her insight on international conflict has also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Health and Human Rights Journal.
A member of APHA’s International Health Section, Asi co-chairs the Section’s Palestine Health Justice Working Group and also collaborates with APHA’s Peace Caucus. She has presented research at multiple APHA Annual Meetings and has served as a mentor to public health professionals who are peace advocates.
“Yara epitomizes what the Sidel-Levy award is meant to recognize: A leader in preventing war and creating superior scholarship in support of this work within the context of public health,” said Rachel Rubin, MD, MPH, adjunct assistant professor at University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health.
Asi is an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida’s School of Global Health Management and Informatics. She is also a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.
Perry N. Halkitis PhD, MS, MPH, is the recipient of the 2024 Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award for a decades-long career of research and advocacy for improving health and well-being in the LGBTQ+ community.
Named in honor of the late Rodriguez-Trias, a past president of APHA, the award recognizes a public health professional’s leadership, advocacy work and mentorship in seeking social justice for underserved populations.
Dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, Halkitis gained early recognition for his research about the links between HIV transmission and methamphetamine addiction. He was one of the researchers behind the P18 Cohort Study, which aimed to tackle health inequities among LGBTQ+ people by taking a long-term look at the health behaviors of young men having sex with men and co-occurring health issues such as intimate partner violence prevention, tobacco use and HPV vaccine misinformation. Halkitis is also the founder of the Annals of LGBTQ+ Public & Population Health, a peer-reviewed journal focused on LGBTQ+ public health and public policy research.
Halkitis harnessed advocacy through academia. At Rutgers, he is the namesake of the Perry N. Halkitis Endowed Chair in LGBTQ+ Public Health, which will help to advance LGBTQ+ community work and research and support the future Rutgers Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health. Also an Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health board chair, Halkitis helped develop an association task force for zero tolerance on discrimination and harassment in 2019. The task force, which Halkitis co-chaired, created and published a framework for tearing down structural racism in public health academia. As a nod to him being a first-generation student born to Greek immigrant parents, Halkitis also created a scholarship for first-generation public health students to attend Rutgers.
“He recognizes the privileges that have been bestowed to him as white male (albeit a gay white man) in American society and the role leaders like himself must play in shouldering and dismantling systemic racism, misogyny, homo-, trans- and xenophobia,” said Jaya Satagopan, PhD, a professor and associate dean for faculty affairs at Rutgers School of Public Health. “This is all to say that a commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and anti-racism are embedded in his DNA.”
Halkitis is also the Hunterdon Professor of Public Health and Health Equity and the founder and director of the Rutgers School of Public Health’s Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies.
Wilma Wooten, MD, MPH, received the 2024 Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work for adopting tools, strategies and technology to achieve health equity for San Diego County, California, residents.
APHA members Milton Roemer, MD, and Ruth Roemer, JD, endowed the prize to recognize innovative public health work.
Before retiring in June as San Diego County, California’s public health officer, Wooten strove for equity in COVID-19 treatment and prevention, using community health workers to target the most vulnerable residents of the county’s South Bay with vaccination programs and contact tracing. Under Wooten, the department launched a health equity dashboard to identify areas with the highest infection rates, and implemented a Healthy Places Index tool to locate the least healthiest residents based on the social determinants of health. Because of her leadership, the county saw one of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in southern California, and the San Diego Union Tribune honored Wooten as the 2020 San Diegan of the Year for her leadership during the pandemic.
Wooten championed health equity before and after the onset of COVID-19. She also identified the 3-4-50 public health model that states tobacco use, lack of physical activity and poor diet lead to four chronic diseases that account for 50% of deaths. This model is used to measure work done through Live Well San Diego, a community partnership that creates programming to champion healthy behaviors, increase access to care, and promote the well-being of over 3 million San Diego County residents. Wooten also created an Office of Health Equity and Climate Change in 2015 to support a county climate action plan to reach net zero emissions by 2045.
“I have come across several healthcare heroes during my tenure in politics, yet Dr. Wooten defies all odds to champion what is righteous and fair, leading by example, and striving to ensure that everyone has an equitable opportunity to attain their full potential,” said San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas.
Heather Tillewein, PhD, MCHES, is the recipient of the 2024 Ayman El-Mohandes Young Professional Public Health Innovation Award for her research and mentorship around the intersection of public health and sexuality.
The award goes to a public health professional who is age 40 or younger and finds creative solutions to complicated public health issues. El-Mohandes endowed the award in hopes of recognizing public health workers who have made an early and meaningful impact on public health through innovation.
Tillewein’s research has centered on the health and well-being of women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. She was one of the first fellows of the Harvard Public Health Review Fellowship, in which she published an award-winning blog that highlighted topics such as sex workers in higher education and surviving conversion therapy. Tillewein has also been an innovator in in research aimed at studying and reducing sexual violence. She is currently developing a Military-Rape and Attitudes Beliefs Survey with the Tennessee National Guard to capture data on sexual violence in the military, and was a faculty lead for the California Institute of Integral Studies Human Sexuality Fellowship to investigate why LGBTQ+ students in higher education are reluctant to report assaults. In addition, Tillewein mentors young public health professionals in the Boston Congress of Public Health’s Thought Leadership for Public Health Fellowship.
“What stands out for me is just the depth and diversity of Dr. Tillewein’s work,” said Circe Gray Le Compte, SD, SM, co-editor-in-chief of Harvard Public Health Review and co-CEO of the Boston Congress of Public Health. “She is not satisfied with simply producing research to be published passively in a journal; she is determined for her work to reach a wider audience, to make lasting change.”
Tillewein, a member of APHA’s LGBTQ Health Caucus, is an assistant professor in Austin Peay State University’s Department of Health and Human Performance.
Jagdish Khubchandani, MD, PhD, MPH, is the recipient of the 2024 Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award for his work in mentoring students in underrepresented groups to become the future public health leaders.
The award is given to accomplished professionals who are dedicated to mentoring the future public health workforce by helping students and early-career professionals with resume-building work such as research and professional development.
Currently a professor of public health at New Mexico State University, Khubchandani has mentored over 500 students across multiple health disciplines and is passionate about the professional development of first generation college students. He is noted for connecting students with networking groups, advising doctoral dissertations, making letters of recommendation and, overall, building necessary research and teaching skills to get them published and find jobs in academia.
Throughout his career, Khubchandani developed research teams of students to boost their professional development while rallying them around finding solutions to issues such as health as a human right and social justice. He served as the principal investigator for New Mexico State University’s No Mind Suffering Unheard program, which trains students to become peer mental health advocates. Students benefited from Khubchandani’s work in finding program funding, recruiting students and planning a campus event to promote conversations on mental health. His past work has included mentoring students who are underrepresented in STEM-related health fields such as biostatistics and biomedical sciences.
Khubchandani also expanded opportunities for underrepresented health professionals as chief editor of the Journal of Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health, where he formed an editorial board of global health professionals that includes first-generation college students.
“Most notably, his community engaged scholarship and practice has been extensively student driven where he has stayed in the background and selflessly shared all knowledge, experience, and accolades with his students,” said Kavita Batra, PhD., MPH, BDS, FRSPH, an assistant professor and senior medical research biostatistician with the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “He is a 24/7 public health educator who has embraced collaborators and mentees from across the world.”
McKenzie Cowlbeck, MPH, is the recipient of the 2024 Giorgio A. Piccagli Leadership Award for prioritizing policy, public health workforce development and advocacy to raise the Oklahoma Public Health Association’s profile.
Named for the late Piccagli, a noted APHA Affiliate and board leader, the award celebrates the exceptional leadership skills of an early-career professional or student member of APHA. Piccagli served in many roles across the Association including as chair of the Council of Affiliates, Health Administration Section and APHA’s Executive Board.
Currently OPHA’s policy director, Cowlbeck has built the Affiliate’s local political presence by expanding its policy committee. Since the time she was a student intern in 2021, Cowlbeck has led a policy revamp that includes planning a retreat to create an Affiliate policy agenda, tracking the state legislature’s public health-related bills, and spearheading an annual Affiliate advocacy day which brought out over 100 people and 12 partner organizations to the state capitol in 2024. Cowlbeck helped secure APHA and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding for her policy efforts that have grown the Affiliate’s policy committee from five active members to 25.
Cowlbeck is also committed to the professional development of Oklahoma public health professionals. Through her contract work with Guiding Right, Inc., a public health community-based nonprofit, the Affiliate has offered nearly 30 hours of continuing education for credentials such as the Certified Public Health credential across 16 in-person and webinar events.
In addition, she is credited with revamping the Affiliate’s communication tools through resurrecting existing Affiliate newsletters and expanding OPHA’s social media presence. Cowlbeck continues to take advantage of every opportunity to participate in APHA-led training and programming including the Policy Action Institute and National Public Health Week, which featured three OPHA webinars this year.
“McKenzie has been a dedicated and passionate public health leader and advocate during her time with OPHA – all of which has been as a student or young professional,” said Tracy Freudenthaler, PhD, Oklahoma Public Health Association’s president. “She has demonstrated self-motivation, resourcefulness, and has committed to impacting public health in Oklahoma and beyond.”
Jackson Public Schools in Jackson, Mississippi, is the recipient of the 2024 APHA Presidential Citation for forming community partnerships that recognize the links between education and better health.
The APHA Presidential Citation is given to an individual or organization for outstanding advancements in public health or its profession.
APHA recognizes Mississippi’s third largest school district for its work with several nonprofits and local agencies such as the Boys and Girls Club of Jackson and the City of Jackson Office of Crime Prevention and Trauma Recovery, to provide onsite social services at schools and give kids and families resources about nutrition and exercise to promote healthy behaviors. Jackson Public Schools serves nearly 18,000 students.
Community investments from school partners like Hinds Behavioral Health and the Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center has played a role in the school system’s letter grade under the Mississippi Statewide Accountability System rising from an “F” to a “C” under the leadership of Jackson Public Schools superintendent Errick Greene, EdD.
“Given the high poverty rates in communities like Jackson, a quality education is critical in promoting healthier living,” Greene said. “Their social capital, their financial resources and their personal decisionmaking are all impacted by the quality of education received and, consequently, their health outcomes and life expectancy.”
Elaine Abrams, MD, and Kenn Harris are the recipients of the 2024 Martha May Eliot Award. Abrams is being recognized for her over 30 years of work in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in pregnant women and children. Harris is being honored for maternal and child health research and practices rooted in racial justice and health equity that also address the need for involved fathers.
The Martha May Eliot Award recognizes excellence in maternal and child health and achievements that raise the field’s profile. The award honors the late Dr. Eliot, a former APHA president, a Maternal and Child Health Section leader, and chief of the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Elaine Abrams, MD, professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center. She created the country’s first family-focused center at New York City’s Harlem Hospital to provide comprehensive wraparound care and treatment services for children living with HIV. During her work at Harlem Hospital, the center was one of the first to give children antiretroviral treatments and formed research partnerships with federal health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study vertical HIV transmission.
She is one of the founding members of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Program, now known as ICAP, a leader in global public health. Through collaborative technical assistance, innovative research and a focus on strengthening health systems, ICAP has tackled some of the world’s most pressing health challenges including HIV, TB, malaria, maternal child health and the COVID-19 pandemic. At ICAP, Abrams has been an asset to the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). As a lead on PEPFAR-funded country programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America, she has helped equip countries with tools, protocols, and medications to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in mothers and children, such as introducing HIV antiretroviral treatment for pregnant people and weight-band dosing for children, making HIV testing a standard for children on hospital admission in high prevalence settings and championing the use of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, including building laboratory capacity, to diagnose HIV infection in infants.
Abrams’ work has influenced the HIV-health related decisionmaking locally as well as globally, through her longstanding participation in U.S. research networks and guidelines committees such as the federal Panel on Treatment of HIV During Pregnancy and Prevention of Perinatal Transmission, as well as global health organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO). During her tenure as chair of the WHO Clinical HIV Guidelines Group, several transformative innovations were introduced in such as universal HIV treatment, fixed dosed once daily antiretroviral regimen, and antiretrovirals for HIV prevention.
Harris has spent most of his over 30-year career in maternal and child health working for Healthy Start, a federally funded program aimed at improving maternal and child health in areas with high infant mortality rates.
His career began in Boston and New Haven, Connecticut, the latter of which he spent over 20 years as a Healthy Start program director where he helped reduce racial disparities in health care through multiple programs such as Mental Health Outreach for Mothers which gives mothers living in poverty access to mental health services. He is well recognized for creating programs that involve more men in maternal and child health care including preconception care, which includes addressing any risks to a woman’s future pregnancy such as substance use, family history of diseases and intimate partner violence.
Harris’ work in Healthy Start has a national reach. He served as board president of the National Healthy Start Association, where he helped develop the Where Dads Matter initiative and is co-creator of the Core Adaptive Model for Fatherhood programs to encourage fathers to embrace their role in protecting their family’s health. Harris was also director of the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality’s Healthy Start Technical Assistance and Support Center where he guided staff located at over 100 Healthy Start programs across the country. Until July, he was also the institute’s vice president of engagement and community partnerships and previously served as its executive project director.
Abrams is a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center. Harris is principal of The Emu Consultants, LLC.
A Special Thanks to Our 2024 APHA Committees
APHA Awards Committee
Donna K. Beal, MPH, MCHES – Chair
Joyce Gaufin
Ayaz Mahmood Khan, MD, MPH, MBA, FACHE, CPE Jonathan Smith, PhD
Jonathan Smith, MPH, MA
Irene Tami-Maury, DMD, MSc, DrPH
Martha May Eliot Award Committee
Arthur R. James, MD – Chair
Beth A. Blacksin, PhD, RN
Jodi Bower, DHA
Jeannette R. Ickovics, PHD
Jennifer Schindler-Ruwisch, DrPH
Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize Committee
Beth M. Roemer, MPH – Roemer Representative
Scott A. Clardy – City/County Health Official
Brooke Cunningham, MD, PhD – State Health Official
Cody J. Mullen, PhD – Chair, Medical Care Section
Takiyah Wilson, PhD, MBA – Chair, Health Administration
Student Assembly Selection Committee for the Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award
Venna Thamilselvan – Chair
Laura Ray – Immediate Past Chair
Abigail Jeyaraj – Mentoring Co-chair
Tamaraemumoemi Okoro – Mentoring Co-chair
APHA Giorgio A. Piccagli Leadership Award Committee
Vonna Henry, RN, BSN, MPH – Chair
Maia Piccagli – Piccagli Representative
Kate Cartwright, PhD, MPH – Chair, Health Administration Awards Committee
Joyce Gaufin – APHA Past President
Melvin Shipp, OD, MPH, DrPH – APHA Past President
Walter Tsou, MD, MPH – APHA Past President
Ex-officio
Georges C. Benjamin, MD – Executive Director
Ella Greene-Moton – APHA President