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Midway News
Alumni receive UChicago MBSAA’s highest honor Distinguished Alumni Awards Susan C. Alberts, SM’92, PhD’92 Robert F. Durden Distinguished Professor, Department of Biology Chair, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University
Susan C. Alberts, SM’92, PhD’92
Walter J. Koroshetz, MD’79
Susan C. Alberts, SM’92, PhD’92, is an acclaimed biologist, anthropologist and primatologist whose research investigates social evolution in mammals, with a focus on the social behavior, demography, genetics and behavioral endocrinology of wild primates. She is the director of one of the longest-running studies of wild primates in the world — the Amboseli Baboon Research Project — in collaboration with Jeanne Altmann, PhD’79, Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, and others. In addition, she is a member of the executive committee of the Duke Global Health Institute, established in 2006 to address important global health issues and reduce health disparities. Until 2015, Alberts was the associate director of science and synthesis at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. In 2019, Alberts was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, which recognizes scientists for achievements in original research and is considered to be one of the highest honors a scientist can receive.
Walter J. Koroshetz, MD’79 Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke National Institutes of Health
Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01
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Walter J. Koroshetz, MD’79, was named director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in 2015. He joined NINDS in 2007 as deputy director and has held leadership roles in a number of major programs, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience, and
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION
the Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 Initiative. Before joining NINDS, Koroshetz served as vice chair of the neurology service and director of stroke and neurointensive care services at Massachusetts General Hospital, and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. His early clinical research focused on Huntington’s disease, where he performed the first study of presymptomatic testing in the disease. He pioneered acute endovascular clot removal for acute stroke and these techniques are now commonplace in acute stroke care. In parallel, Koroshetz worked to improve the care of patients with acute stroke and other critical illnesses through neurointensive care.
Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01 Colonel, Medical Corps, U.S. Army Director of Surgery, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01, is an orthopaedic surgeon with research interests in trauma-related amputation techniques and outcomes (including osseo-integration and targeted muscle re-innervation), combat-related heterotopic ossification, and predictive modeling of musculoskeletal trauma and oncologic outcomes. He is chief orthopaedic surgeon for the Amputee Program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, as well as a musculoskeletal oncology consultant at Walter Reed and the National Institutes of Health. Potter was selected as the orthopaedic surgery consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General in March 2019. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and 2016. In 2020, he deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, as the senior theater orthopaedic surgeon embedded with the 411th Hospital Center. He is past president of the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons and serves on the Scientific and Medical Advisory Committee for the Amputee Coalition.
