Kudos

Submit information for consideration for Kudos. Please include complete titles and doctoral degrees.

Awards and Honors

Dennis M. Perrotta, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology and biosecurity, School of Public Health (SPH), received the National Epidemiology Award at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists in Albuquerque, N.M. The award for career-long contributions to applied public health is known as the Pump Handle Award after the historic removal of a water pump handle to stop the spread of cholera. The organization represents more than 800 public health epidemiologists.

Perrotta is a former state epidemiologist and scientific director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Response, Texas Department of Health. He has faculty appointments at the School of Nursing (SON) and the three Texas schools of public health.

During the 13th World Congress of Psychiatry in Cairo, Egypt, in September, Pedro Ruiz, M.D., professor and vice chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Medical School (MS), received a presidential commendation and an honorary fellowship from the World Psychiatric Association in recognition of his contributions to psychiatry. Later in the month, Ruiz was named to the 2005 Honor Roll of the Latino Behavioral Health Institute during its 11th annual meeting in Los Angeles, Calif., for his contributions on behalf of Hispanic Americans.

Presentations

David Eagleman, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy, MS and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS), is featured in a BBC documentary titled “Time.” To determine whether time perceptually goes into slow motion during fearful situations, Eagleman measured the rate of the brain’s information processing while subjects plummeted 100 feet in free fall onto a net below. The documentary will air in early January.

Eagleman was an invited keynote speaker at the McDonnell Conference in Philosophy and Neuroscience in June at the California Institute of Technology. He spoke on the scientific and philosophical applications of his research on time and the brain. He also holds appointments at the Institute for Neuroscience and the Department of Psychology, UT Austin, and the Department of Psychology, Rice University.

Publications

Marlene Z. Cohen, Ph.D., the John S. Dunn Sr. Distinguished Professor in Oncology Nursing and interim chair of the Department of Target Populations, SON, is first author of the article “The Cancer Pain Experience of Israeli and American Patients 65 years and older” that appears in the September issue of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. The findings indicated that Israeli patients had higher pain scores and lower pain management scores than American patients. Potential implications of these findings include the need for culturally appropriate interventions.

Xianglin L. Du, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology, SPH, published a study in the September issue of the Journal of Gerontology titled “Effectiveness of Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Node-Positive Operable Breast Cancer in Older Women.” Findings from the observational study are based on assessing thousands of patient records from the SEER-Medicare database. The database links Medicare-eligible persons with cancer in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program of cancer registries with their Medicare claims. Du says adjuvant or combined chemotherapy is effective in treating breast cancer for women up to 69. For 70 and older, the effectiveness is unknown, and additional research needs to be completed.