Kudos is an occasional column that recognizes Dartmouth faculty, students, and staff who have received awards or other honors. Did you or a colleague recently receive an award or honor? Please tell us about it: dartmouth.news@dartmouth.edu.
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Melody Brown Burkins, director of the Institute of Arctic Studies and senior associate director in the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, has been reelected to the governing board of the International Science Council (ISC), which works to convene and mobilize scientific expertise and influence on global scientific and societal issues. Burkins, who also is an adjunct professor of environmental studies, advised a recent ISC report that called for the development and funding of “Sustainability Science Missions” in the areas of food, energy and climate, health and wellbeing, water, and urban areas to help stabilize Earth systems within the next two decades. The report also urged “a global approach of relentless inclusion,” Burkins noted. “This work cannot be done by scientists and funders alone, but must be co-created with local communities, Indigenous Peoples organizations, NGOs, governments, and the full diversity of societal partners.”
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Abigail Dutton, an MD-PhD student at the Geisel School of Medicine, and engineering PhD student Congran “Billy” Jin were among 13 finalists in the 2021 Matariki Three Minute Thesis competition. The international contest challenges students to explain the significance of their research to a general audience in just three minutes. Dutton’s presentation, “Brain, Behavior, and Herpes?” described her research exploring how herpes simplex virus interacts with the brain, changing the behavior of people who contract it. Jin’s entry, “An Energetic Heart,” focused on his work developing implantable devices that can collect biomechanical energy from the human body, including from the heartbeat, and convert it to electrical energy that can be used to charge electronics, such as pacemakers, to avoid replacement surgeries.
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A team of researchers, including Lisa Marsch, the Andrew G. Wallace Professor of psychiatry and biomedical data science and director of the Dartmouth Center for Technology and Behavioral Health; William Torrey, the Raymond Sobel Professor of Psychiatry and interim chair of the Department of Psychiatry, have received Colombian National Academy of Medicine Award for their work implementing a new primary care model that provides widespread access to diagnosis and treatment of depression and unhealthy alcohol use. Primary investigators Marsch and Carlos Gómez-Restrepo, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá; and Torrey, co-investigator, worked with Colombian community members and governmental partners to assess the sustainability of the model, which uses mobile health technology to provide science-based mental health care in regions with a high incidence of mental health problems and few corresponding services.
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Theresa Ong, assistant professor of environmental studies, has been named an Excellence in Ecology Scholar by the Ecological Society of America (ESA). The new award honors members who have received a PhD within the last two decades and aims to “support and elevate diverse scientists in our community,” the ESA notes. Ong, an agroecologist, combines theory with empirical work in agricultural systems to understand how complex interactions among the environment, organisms, and people influence food production and ecosystem stability. She uses techniques from complex systems and theoretical ecology to understand how sustainable agricultural systems and the ecological communities within them are maintained under social and environmental stress. Each of the four Excellence in Ecology Scholars will receive a budget of $5,000 to advance their scientific endeavors and will be honored at the society’s 2022 annual meeting.
