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Faculty Awards
Accolades & Achievements
Aristotle is credited for saying what our faculty are proving: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Howard W. Houser, PhD, Professor Emeritus, UAB Department of Health Services Administration, has been selected as a member of the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020. His career at UAB spanned 45 years, from 1965 until his retirement in 2010. Even though he is officially retired, Dr. Houser still contributes to the Department in many ways – he’s even on our departmental Zoom huddles each Friday.
His first assignment, as a young administrator, was to orchestrate the desegregation of UAB Hospital in 1965. Dr. Houser went on to train and develop numerous graduate and postgraduate students in health administration and is beloved by all that he taught and mentored. He and Dr. Mathew McNulty developed a curriculum that has educated students in both the Master's and Doctoral programs. Dr. Houser was instrumental in laying the foundation for UAB’s Master of Science in Health Administration (MSHA) program that is now ranked #1 in the country by US News & World Report. These students have effectively led community hospitals for over 55 years.
Among other international efforts, Houser created a four-year program to educate Chinese students in health administration, graduating the first class in 1989. Since then, he has hosted more than 100 visiting students, scholars and medical delegations and helped establish a state-of-the-art pediatric hospital in China. ■
Berner, Borkowski Earn University-Wide Professor Appointments
Eta S. Berner, EdD, was named University Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration in the School of Health Professions. Berner became a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics in 1999, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in 2006 and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in 2019 and has published articles in leading journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Academic Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Nancy M. Borkowski, DBA, CPA,
FACHE, FHFMA, was named Distinguished Professor in the UAB Department of Health Services Administration. A certified public accountant who is board-certified in health management and has over 20 years’ experience in health care, Borkowski joined UAB in 2014 and is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. She is the author of four books, including Organizational Behavior in Health Care, which was named 2005 Book of the Year for nursing leadership and management by The American Journal of Nursing. ■
Michelle Brown, PhD, received the 2020 Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentorship, which recognizes full-time regular UAB faculty members who demonstrate exceptional commitment as mentors of graduate students and / or postdoctoral fellows and acknowledges an individual’s ability to inspire and motivate students as they engage in research activities, seek grant support and publish their work, to promote ethical behavior and professional values, while creating a collaborative and constructive atmosphere.
Christy Harris Lemak, PhD, earned the Myron D. Fottler Exceptional Service Award for serving “as a meaningful mentor, not only to colleagues and students” at UAB, but also for her impact on others across the Division. This award is regarded as the AOM HCM Division’s most distinguished award because it is not given every year – it is only awarded when the Division identifies someone deserving of the honor.
Mehta Receives SHP Excellence in Scholarship Award
Tapan Mehta, PhD, is a coinvestigator, site Pl, and lead statistician to several research studies funded by agencies such as NIH, NIDILRR and PCORI. He has a strong publication record with over 50 peer-reviewed articles including several first-author articles. He has published in highly competitive journals such as JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine and Obesity Reviews. He also serves as the Chair of UAB’s Faculty Senate Research Committee and is UAB Faculty Chair-Elect.
Shannon H. Houser, PhD, MPH, RHIA, FAHIMA, (BSMRA 1993),
professor in UAB’s Department of Health Services Administration, is the recipient of the 2020 AAHIM Distinguished Member Award from the Alabama Association of Health Information Management. This award is given annually to an active member with at least 10 years’ experience “marked by distinction, excellence of service and contribution to the profession.”
Thirumalai Receives UAB Faculty Senate Distinguished Service Award
Mohan Thirumalai, PhD, was awarded the UAB i6 Funding from the Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which is meant for UAB faculty, staff, and students to advance ideas to market and funded by U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA). This grant is to develop a commercial product for research and research participant management.
Hearld Part of Team Honored for Work in Caribbean
Ria Hearld, PhD, and the team received the Robert Carr Research Award at the International AIDS Conference July 8, 2020. The biennial award is sponsored by the International Council of AIDS Service Organisations, Human Rights Watch, the International AIDS Society and the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The work led by Henna Budhwani and John Waters, MD, with the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) certainly was crossdisciplinary, involving partnerships across countries, among academic and community leaders and between faculty and students. ■
