2006-2010 Research Appreciation Day
2010
Brian Smedley, PhD
Vice President and Director
Health Policy Institute
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
Washington, DC
Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D., is Vice President and Director of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research and policy organization that seeks to ensure that people of color have equal opportunities to achieve their full potential and have a voice in decisions that affect them. The Joint Center is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading think tanks focused on issues of concern to African Americans and other people of color.
Dr. Smedley is a nationally recognized researcher in the field of health disparities, with a proven track record of leadership and innovation to advance health equity. His research and publications on topics such as the relationship between residential segregation and health inequities, disparities in health care access and quality, and diversity in the health professions have been highly influential and important to the work of activists and policymakers around the country.
2009
Josephine Briggs, MD
Director
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., an accomplished researcher and physician, is Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the leading Federal agency for research on integrative and complementary health practices.
Dr. Briggs received her A.B. in biology from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and nephrology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, where she was also Chief Resident in the Department of Internal Medicine and a fellow in clinical nephrology. She then held a research fellowship in physiology at Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Briggs was a research scientist for 7 years at the Physiology Institute at the University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Dr. Briggs’s research interests include the renin–angiotensin system, circadian regulation of blood pressure, and policy and ethical issues around clinical research. She has published more than 175 research articles, book chapters, and other scholarly publications.
2008
Bruce Budowle, PhD
Senior Scientist
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Quantico, Virginia
Bruce Budowle, PhD, director of the UNT Health Science Center’s Institute of Investigative Genetics and vice chair of the Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics, has been named a Health Care Hero by Dallas Business Journal. He joined the Health Science Center in 2009, bringing renowned expertise in the areas of counterterrorism, primarily in identification of victims from mass disasters and microbial forensics.
Prior to joining the Health Science Center, Budowle spent 40 years as a senior scientist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Washington, D.C. He was a principal advisor in efforts to identify victims from the World Trade Center attack in 2001 and helped establish a mitochondrial DNA sequencing program to enable high-throughput sequencing of human remains.
Budowle’s commitment to helping families resolve missing persons cases led him to Fort Worth after a lifetime in the Virginia/Washington, D.C., area in order to collaborate with Health Science Center researchers and advance the knowledge and use of forensics and DNA to improve health and safety of the world’s population. Budowle has also been instrumental in establishing the DNA-ProKids initiative to identify missing children on an international scale.
2007: “Heart of the Matter: Coronary Dysfunction in Obesity and Insulin”
Jonathan Tune, PhD – GSBS ’97
Associate Professor of Cellular and Integrative Physiology
Indiana University School of Medicine
Jonathan Tune, PhD, received his doctorate degree at UNT Health Science Center in 1997 under the direction of Fred Downey, PhD. He went on to perform a postdoctoral fellowship in coronary physiology in the preeminent laboratory of Eric Feigl, MD at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle from 1997-2000. Dr. Tune joined UNTHSC faculty in 2000, went on to Louisiana State University and in 2006 moved into his current position at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.
Dr. Tune is known for his research on local metabolic and endothelial control of coronary blood flow as well as his recent work to delineate the mechanisms of coronary vascular dysfunction in obesity and insulin resistance.
2006
Julian F. R. Paton, PhD
Professor of Integrative Physiology
Bristol Heart Institute, School of Medical Sciences
University of Bristol
Bristol, England
Julian Paton, PhD, holds a personal Chair in Integrative Physiology at the University of Bristol, England. Paton obtained his PhD at the University of London, then worked as a visiting scientist at E.I. du Pont de Nemours, Wilmington, Delaware and as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Gottingen, Germany.
Julian Paton was awarded with the Sharpey-Schafer Lecture and Prize in 1999 at University College London, England, and the Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lecture & Prize in 2005 at the joint IUPS-FASEB in San Diego.
“High Blood Pressure: Is it Caused by Vascular Inflammation in the Brainstem?”
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