Achievement
Raman Bahal, associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been selected for the 2025 class of Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars (ELHM) by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Only 10 selections were made nationally to this group of early-to-mid-career professionals from a wide range of health-related fields, including pediatrics, infectious diseases, psychiatry, and biomedical engineering. The NAM’s ELHM program provides a platform for a new generation of leaders to collaborate with the NAM and its members to advance science, address persistent challenges in health and medicine, and spark transformative change to improve health for all.
Dr. Jaclyn Olsen Jaeger of UConn Center on Aging and UConn School of Medicine was appointed to two national education committees. She will join the Education Committees of the American College of Physicians and the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association.
Dr. Bina Katechia recently received the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry’s Dr. Lewis Kay Excellence in Education Award. This award honors a recipient who demonstrates outstanding leadership, is committed to educating pediatric dental residents to provide children with comprehensive quality oral health care, and brings recognition to their program through their contributions to society and the profession of dentistry.
Dr. Denis Lafreniere, chief of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at School of Medicine and UConn Health, has been inducted as a fellow into the Triological Society. Fellowship in the Triological Society involves years of preparation, vetting, and is only awarded to select members of the ENT field globally. The Triological Society, also known as The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc., was founded more than 125 years. It is the most prestigious society in otolaryngology and elects the brightest in academic and clinical otolaryngology.
Sir Cato T. Laurencin, MD, Ph.D., KCSL, the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, received the Bioactive Materials Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony held in May in China. It was the highlight of the Westlake Advanced Regenerative Medicine Engineering Conference, which was the first international meeting on regenerative engineering, a field he founded and has pioneered. The Bioactive Materials Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2020 to recognize excellence in research and development in the field.
He was also named the recipient of the 2025 Dickson Prize in Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh’s highest honor. The Dickson Prize in Medicine is awarded annually to a leading American investigator engaged in innovative and paradigm-shifting biomedical research.
Angelina Reyes, assistant director of multimedia productions in University Communications, won a 2025 Boston/New England Emmy Award for her video production on the return of men’s polo at UConn. The award, announced at a ceremony in Boston on June 7, is her first Emmy win. Ryan Bernat, now a multimedia specialist at UConn Health, earned three 2025 Emmy wins for prior news work produced as chief photographer for WTNH-TV in Connecticut.
Scott Wallace, associate professor in the Department of Journalism, won a Gold Award by the Independent Book Publishers Association in the category of history for his 2004 book “Central America in the Crosshairs of War: On the Road from Vietnam to Iraq” published by George F. Thompson Publishing.
In Memoriam
Dr. Frederick Conard III, 80, of West Hartford, Conn., a former faculty member at UConn Health, on May 31.
Hallie Krider, 82, a retired professor of molecular and cell biology, of Las Cruces, N.M., on May 31.
Thomas Lipscomb, 74, of Simsbury, Conn., a former assistant professor of psychology, on June 1.
Robert Murmann, 97, of Monmouth, Ill., a former chemistry instructor in the 1950s, on June 6.
