2023 Award Recipients
Barbara T. Murphy Award
Rulan S. Parekh, MD, MS, FASN
Dr. Parekh is vice president of academics at Women's College Hospital, responsible for research, innovation and education; a staff nephrologist at Women's College Hospital and The Hospital for Sick Children; and professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Toronto. She is a trailblazer who has often been the first woman—and the first woman of color—in the many leadership roles she has held, and she continues to break barriers in nephrology and beyond.
Dr. Parekh is a clinician-scientist, nephrologist, and international leader in clinical epidemiology and translational research in kidney diseases. She is known for a genetic discovery that accounts for a higher risk of chronic kidney disease among those of African ancestry. Her discoveries revolutionized the understanding of genetic risk factors for kidney diseases when she identified the genetic locus that accounts for 70% of the prevalence of end stage kidney disease among African Americans. Her research is now focused on determining the utility of genetic screening for kidney diseases in sub-Saharan Africa in children and adults.
Dr. Parekh has been an active member of ASN since 1995, serving on the Scientific Organizing Committee and as associate editor of CJASN. Additional editorial positions include serving on the boards of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease, and BMC Nephrology. In addition to supporting ASN's mentoring resource development, she has mentored hundreds of students and post-doctoral trainees and is a steadfast advocate for equity in science and medicine.
She chairs the International Society of Nephrology North America and the Caribbean Regional Board and is a member of the Standing Committee on Science of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the medical review panel for the Gairdner Foundation.
Dr. Parekh has received many awards, including the National Kidney Foundation Serving Maryland & Delaware Research Award, the C. Phillips Rance Nephrology Award of Merit, the American Nephrologists of Indian Origin Award for Clinical Excellence, and the ASN Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar Grant.
She received her MD from Albany Medical College and her MS in clinical research design and biostatistics from the University of Michigan. She completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and pediatrics, a nephrology fellowship, and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan, as well as a research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.
Robert G. Narins Award
Michael Emmett, MD
Dr. Emmett is chair emeritus of the Department of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center, clinical professor of internal medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Medicine, adjunct professor at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and attending physician in internal medicine and pathology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. He served as chief of nephrology for 10 years at Baylor.
For more than 40 years, Dr. Emmett's contributions to the teaching of medical students, residents, fellows, and peers in nephrology and internal medicine have been widely recognized. During his tenure at Baylor, he has participated in the training of more than 100 nephrology fellows and received many Best Teacher of the Year awards.
Dr. Emmett has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and textbook chapters. These publications have advanced the knowledge of the pathophysiology of multivalent ion and potassium disorders in renal disease and influenced the clinical approach to the diagnosis and therapy of patients with advanced kidney diseases.
He has served on the editorial boards of CJASN, Clinical Nephrology, Kidney International, and The American Journal of Cardiology. He served for many years as a member of the Nephrology Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Since 2010, Dr. Emmett has been an editor of the online textbook UpToDate, focusing on nephrology topics and sections on the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and therapy of fluid, electrolyte, and acid-base disorders.
Dr. Emmett received his medical degree from Temple University (Lewis Katz) School of Medicine, followed by a residency at Yale New Haven Medical Center and a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the faculty at Baylor in 1976.
Belding H. Scribner Award
Philip K.T. Li, MD
Dr. Li is a consultant physician in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, and honorary professor of medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also the director of the university's Carol and Richard Yu Peritoneal Dialysis Research Centre.
Established in 1995, the Belding H. Scribner Award is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the care of patients with renal disorders or have substantially influenced the clinical practice of nephrology.
A global leader in service to the profession of nephrology, Dr. Li is president of the International Association of Chinese Nephrologists, vice president of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, immediate past president of the Hong Kong College of Physicians, president of The Asian Pacific Society of Nephrology (APSN), and president of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis.
His past positions include serving as a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, Brown University, and the University of Virginia in the United States; Nanjing University, Fudan University, and Peking University in China; Nagoya University in Japan; and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
Dr. Li's research interests are in peritoneal dialysis, immunoglobulin A nephropathy, and integrated care of chronic kidney disease. He has published more than 630 original and review journal articles, 5 books, and 22 book chapters. He has given over 260 lectures to international congresses, meetings, and academic institutions.
He has received several international awards, including the International Distinguished Medal of the National Kidney Foundation, the Priscilla Kincaid Smith Award of The APSN, and the Oreopoulos Award of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis.
Dr. Li received his MBBS from the University of Hong Kong and received physician training from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He obtained his MRCP and completed his research fellowship at Hammersmith Hospital, Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. He served as chief of nephrology at the Prince of Wales Hospital from 2002 to 2020.
John P. Peters Award
Katherine R. Tuttle, MD, FASN
Dr. Tuttle is executive director for research at Providence Health Care in Spokane, WA; co-principal investigator at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences; and professor of medicine at the University of Washington (UW). She oversees a regional network of 17 clinical research centers and chairs the regional executive council for UW.
Dr. Tuttle's major research interests are in diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD). As a clinical and translational scientist, she has published more than 300 original, peer-reviewed articles. Early in her career, she produced a landmark study elucidating physiological principles underlying glomerular hyperfiltration in humans with diabetes. This foundational work led to a number of physiological and pre-clinical studies that laid a foundation for new, therapeutic targets in clinical trials. Over more than three decades, that work helped deliver sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibition as the most impactful therapy to reduce risks of kidney failure, cardiovascular events, and death in individuals with and without diabetes.
Dr. Tuttle has also been a leading investigator for other breakthrough therapies, including incretins and anti-inflammatory agents. She led the original clinical trial that elevated glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists as potential therapeutics for CKD.
She leads the Center for Kidney Disease Research, Education and Hope (CURE-CKD) registry of real-world data for CKD, diabetes, pre-diabetes, and hypertension from nearly 4 million patients of the health system. Her work has shaped the “pillars of therapy” approach to CKD across the spectrum of scientific discovery, clinical trials, and population-level implementation.
Dr. Tuttle currently chairs the ASN Diabetic Kidney Disease Collaborative Task Force. She served on the inaugural board of directors of the Kidney Health Initiative and has chaired numerous other working groups and committees for organizations including the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Kidney Foundation (NKF), International Society of Nephrology, and American Diabetes Association. She served as associate editor of CJASN and the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
She has received many honors including the Medal of Excellence from the American Association of Kidney Patients, Garabed Eknoyan Award from the NKF, YWCA Women of Achievement Award in science, and two outstanding clinical faculty awards from UW.
Dr. Tuttle earned her medical degree and completed her residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University. She was a fellow in metabolism and endocrinology at Washington University in St. Louis and then completed her nephrology fellowship at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Homer W. Smith Award
Ali G. Gharavi, MD
Dr. Gharavi will speak on “Nephrology Practice and Therapeutics Through a Genomic Lens.”
Dr. Gharavi is the Jay Meltzer Professor of Nephrology and Hypertension and chief of the Division of Nephrology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. He is also director of the Center for Precision Medicine and Genomics and interim director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Columbia University.
Dr. Gharavi's research is focused on the molecular genetics of kidney diseases. His work has led to the discovery of genes and loci for glomerulonephritis, hypertension, polycystic liver disease, and congenital defects of the kidney and urinary tract. His research has demonstrated the utility of sequencing in the diagnosis and management of patients with nephropathy. His current focus is on the genetics of immunoglobulin A nephropathy (the most common glomerulonephritis) and the genetics of the kidney and the urinary tract (the most common cause of kidney failure in children). His laboratory is also studying the applications of genomic medicine to clinical care for patients with kidney diseases.
Dr. Gharavi has contributed more than 160 publications on the genetics of kidney diseases, and his studies have clarified basic pathophysiology and influenced clinical practice across multiple areas. Dr. Gharavi is the principal investigator of multiple scientific projects funded by the National Institutes of Health.
He has served ASN in many capacities, including chairing abstract reviews for genetics, molecular genetics, and basic and experimental immunology; co-chairing several oral communications sessions, a symposium on genetic tools to study renal function, and a conference on genome engineering; and serving on the Program Committee of an annual meeting. He served on the Board of Directors of the Eastern Chapter of the American Society of Hypertension.
Dr. Gharavi has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Physiology—Renal Physiology, Kidney International, and the Journal of Nephrology. He is currently associate editor of JASN.
Among his many honors, he has received the Judson Daland Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Investigation from the American Philosophical Society, the National Kidney Foundation Clinical Scientist Award, and the Kidney and Urology Foundation Innovator Award.
After receiving his medical degree from The George Washington University, Dr. Gharavi completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowships in hypertension and nephrology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in human genetics at Yale School of Medicine. He joined Columbia University in 2003.
Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award
Benjamin S. Freedman, PhD
Dr. Freedman is associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington (UW), where he works with the Division of Nephrology, Kidney Research Institute, and Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine.
Dr. Freedman's research focuses on how microscopic events in human cells produce macroscopic organs and tissues. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Freedman showed that human pluripotent stem cells from patients with polycystic kidney disease express molecular defects. He developed innovative protocols to change human pluripotent stem cells into kidney organoids, which are microscopic structures that resemble nephrons. Combining this with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing, he established the first kidney organoid models of polycystic kidney disease and glomerulosclerosis.
After joining UW, Dr. Freedman applied kidney organoids to produce new, mechanistic insights into the cellular and molecular basis of kidney disease states and established new, human, phenotypic models of ciliopathies, apolipoprotein L1 kidney disease, and SARS-CoV-2 infection. He automated the mass production of organoids from stem cells using liquid-handling robots—the first time such a feat had been achieved for any organ lineage. He recently merged organoid and organ-on-chip technologies, enabling microfluidic flow and bringing these structures even closer to actual nephrons.
Dr. Freedman has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals and a chapter on gene editing, organoids, and kidney regeneration for Brenner and Rector's The Kidney. He was a steering committee member of the Kidney Health Initiative.
Dr. Freedman's patented method to generate kidney organoids has been developed into a commercial kit by STEMCELL Technologies.
Dr. Freedman has received numerous awards, including researcher honoree of the Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) Foundation, a career development award from the National Institutes of Health, a young investigator grant from the National Kidney Foundation, and a Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar Award from ASN.
He received his PhD in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Renal Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
President's Medal
Ed Kashi
ASN presents this medal to individuals who have advanced the society's mission to fight against kidney diseases by educating health professionals, sharing new knowledge, advancing research, and advocating for patients.
Kashi became interested in CKDu when he learned that in recent years, young people—primarily agricultural workers from hot, rural, resource-limited parts of the world—have been arriving at clinics with advanced stages of kidney failure. Thousands of people in locations, such as Sri Lanka, Nicaragua, Peru, and India, are dying from CKDu—and its incidence is increasing faster than any disease other than HIV.
He has spent the past 5 years documenting the effects of CKDu around the world. Research implicates climate change as an important contributor to its rise because repeated dehydration, severe heat, and environmental toxins are the likely factors in the rising death toll among sugarcane workers.
“Given the lack of medical attention, CKDnT [CKD of non-traditional origin] is devastating communities, families, and individuals who are caught between precarious work, inactive governments, abusive employers, and inhuman labor practices,” Kashi says.
In the short film, With Every Breath, Kashi and his colleague Tom Laffay highlight the experience of a young woman living with the disease in Peru who faces pain, fear, and the reality of being dependent on dialysis for the rest of her life.
Another short film, Hidden Under the Indian Sun, follows a young student in southeastern India whose dreams of becoming an engineer are threatened by her duty to care for her father who is on dialysis and is unable to work digging wells since being diagnosed with CKDu. Furthermore, Under Cane takes viewers to a town in Nicaragua where one-third of the men, mostly those who harvest sugarcane, have end stage kidney disease.
Kashi has covered topics as diverse as the impact of oil in Nigeria, the Protestant community in Northern Ireland, Jewish settlers in the West Bank, an aging society, climate change, and the plight of Syrian refugees. His work has been published and exhibited worldwide and received numerous awards.
A sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship with his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. “I take on issues that stir my passions about the state of humanity and our world, and I deeply believe in the power of images to change people's minds,” he says.
Distinguished Educator Award
Anna Marie Burgner, MD, MEHP
Dr. Burgner is assistant professor of medicine and director of the nephrology fellowship program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
She has worked diligently over the past 10 years to bring innovation to medical education and transform training in nephrology. She co-directs the Excellence in Teaching program, a 2-year, longitudinal curriculum focused on developing internal medicine residents' skills in medical education. Dr. Burgner is responsible for expanding the program to include all medicine fellowship programs.
She has implemented innovations in Vanderbilt's nephrology fellowship program to include training in performing kidney biopsies and multidisciplinary management of dialysis access complications.
Dr. Burgner has also been involved in several international social media-based nephrology education initiatives. For the past 7 years, she has been on the Executive Committee for NephMadness, a nephrology educational initiative inspired by college basketball's March Madness. She is also on the board of directors of the Nephrology Journal Club, NephJC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing free open access medical education pertaining to nephrology, hypertension, and transplantation.
She has served on multiple national committees focused on education. She co-chairs the ASN In-Training Examination Committee and is a member of the ASN Workforce and Training Committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, she helped to transition the annual ASN Training Program Directors Retreats to quarterly, virtual town halls by sitting on planning committees, moderating breakout sessions, and giving presentations. She is also on the editorial board of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases and associate editor of Nephrology News & Issues.
Dr. Burgner received her MD from Indiana University School of Medicine, followed by a residency and nephrology fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She also completed a Master of Education in the Health Professions program through Johns Hopkins University.
Jason Cobb, MD
Dr. Cobb is associate professor of medicine in the Division of Renal Medicine and associate director of the nephrology fellowship program at Emory University School of Medicine.
His research has focused on quality improvement in medical education as well as developing projects to address health disparities, particularly exploring conditions observed at high volumes at Emory University Hospital, such as lupus nephritis, HIV, and calciphylaxis, which disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority groups.
In his educational efforts for ASN, Dr. Cobb has served on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and the Workforce and Training Committee. He has represented ASN in activities of the National Collaborative for Improving the Clinical Learning Environment and in Equity Matters of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. As a principal investigator for an ASN grant for its Kidney Mentoring and Assessment Program for Students (MAPS), he explored outreach to medical students to encourage interest in nephrology.
Dr. Cobb has been active with ASN Kidney Week, organizing, reviewing patient safety abstracts and home dialysis oral presentations, as well as moderating a session on health care equity in kidney diseases.
At Emory University, he serves as a member of the Medical School Performance Evaluation Committee and faculty advisor for Kidney MAPS and the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program.
Dr. Cobb received his medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine, where he completed his internal medicine residency and served as chief fellow during his nephrology fellowship.
Distinguished Leader Award
Kenar D. Jhaveri, MD, FASN
Dr. Jhaveri is professor of medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and associate chief of the Division of Kidney Diseases and Hypertension at Northwell Health.
As associate division chief, Dr. Jhaveri has been instrumental in developing a glomerular disease center and onco-nephrology and cardio-renal services. He recently launched the trailblazing Galdi fellowship, an advanced fellowship in onco-nephrology and glomerular diseases.
In the early days of the pandemic in New York, he spearheaded fast adaptations in clinical care and led research on COVID-19-related acute kidney injury.
A leading figure in onconephrology and glomerular disease research and treatment, Dr. Jhaveri is a founding member and past president of the newly formed American Society of Onconephrology and a founding member of the International Society of Glomerular Disease. He has published more than 200 articles on these topics as well as other domains in nephrology, including social media and medical education.
He is the editor-in-chief of Kidney News and serves on the editorial boards of CJASN, Kidney International, and the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
Dr. Jhaveri's efforts to bring innovation to education include introducing case-based debates to the ASN Fellows in Training Bowl, a monthly online “GN Chat,” and the amusing teaching portal “Detective Nephron,” periodically featured in Kidney News. He has served on several ASN education committees and teaches creatively via multiple channels, including his “Nephron Power” blog. He has a prominent social media presence with 10,000 followers on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Dr. Jhaveri received his medical degree from the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. He completed his residency at the Yale New Haven Hospital and his nephrology fellowship at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Jeffrey Perl, MD
Dr. Perl is a staff nephrologist at St. Michael's Hospital and associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada.
His research, clinical practice, and teaching all focus on home dialysis, including improving access, survival, quality of life, and general clinical outcomes.
Dr. Perl is a primary investigator in the international Peritoneal Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (PDOPPS) and co-principal investigator of the Optimizing the Prevention of Peritoneal Dialysis-Associated Peritonitis in the U.S. (OPPUS) study.
He co-chairs the ASN Home Dialysis Steering Committee and previously chaired the Home Dialysis Subcommittee of the ASN COVID-19 Response Team. He served the International Society of Nephrology as chair of the Young Nephrologists Committee and co-chair of the North America and Caribbean Regional Board. He has been active with the National Kidney Foundation, including serving as chair and course director of clinical meetings.
Dr. Perl is editor-in-chief of Peritoneal Dialysis International and recently co-chaired the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference on Home Dialysis. He has served on the editorial boards of CJASN, Kidney360, Kidney Medicine, and the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
Among many honors, he has received the John Maher Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis and several teaching awards from the University of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital.
Dr. Perl received his MD from the University of Toronto and a master's degree in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed internal medicine training, a nephrology fellowship, a research fellowship, and a clinical research fellowship at the University of Toronto.
Distinguished Researcher Award
Thomas J. Carroll, PhD
Dr. Carroll is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and a member of the Division of Nephrology at The University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center.
He is internationally recognized for his research in kidney development and polycystic kidney disease. His most widely cited work explores the mechanisms by which members of the Wnt family of glycoproteins regulate the formation of new nephrons in the developing kidney.
He also published a paper describing a signaling mechanism in which stromal epithelial cells regulate kidney progenitor cell differentiation and proliferation through modulation of the Hippo signaling pathway. This work on the signaling mechanisms involved in kidney induction during development has important implications for kidney diseases and possible regenerative strategies.
Dr. Carroll's laboratory has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, and he has been recognized for his mentorship of new investigators and junior faculty members. His early work was recognized by a Carl Gottschalk Career Development Award from ASN and a scientist development grant from the American Heart Association.
He has served ASN on a Kidney Week Organizing Committee and as a session chair and abstract reviewer. He served on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology–Renal Physiology.
Dr. Carroll earned his doctorate in zoology from The UT at Austin and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He joined The UT Southwestern faculty in 2004 and was promoted to tenured professor in 2016.
Ian De Boer, MD, MS
Dr. de Boer is professor of medicine, director of the Kidney Research Institute (a collaboration between the University of Washington [UW] Department of Medicine and Northwest Kidney Centers), Joseph W. Eschbach, MD, Endowed Chair in Kidney Research, and adjunct professor of epidemiology at UW in Seattle. He is also a staff nephrologist at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, where he cares for patients with a broad range of acute and chronic kidney diseases.
Dr. de Boer's research focuses on the causes, development, progression, and consequences of diabetic kidney disease. Using methods that span clinical epidemiology, physiology studies, and clinical trials, he has made contributions in the areas of epidemiology of diabetic kidney disease, prevention and treatment of kidney diseases in diabetes, metabolic abnormalities in chronic kidney disease, and the role of impaired mineral metabolism in the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular diseases. He has helped define the effects of intensive diabetes therapy on kidney diseases and the key role played by kidney diseases in the cardiovascular complications of diabetes.
Dr. de Boer has published more than 400 manuscripts in the field. He serves as deputy editor of CJASN and associate editor of Contemporary Clinical Trials.
As a member of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Professional Practice Committee, he helped write ADA's Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes. He co-chaired the committee that created the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Clinical Practice Guideline for Diabetes Management in Chronic Kidney Disease.
Dr. de Boer received his medical degree from the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and a master's degree in epidemiology from the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine. He completed an internal medicine internship and residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and clinical and research fellowships in nephrology at UW.
Distinguished Mentor Award
Ann M. O'Hare, MD, MA
Dr. O'Hare is professor of medicine, director of the faculty mentoring program, and an investigator at the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence at the University of Washington (UW). She is also a staff physician at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, a core investigator and acting associate director at the VA Health Services Research & Development Centers of Innovation, an investigator at the Kidney Research Institute (a collaboration between the UW Department of Medicine and Northwest Kidney Centers), and an affiliate investigator at Kaiser Permanente Northwest Research Institute.
Dr. O'Hare's clinical and research interests focus on the management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in older individuals, as well as palliative and end-of-life care in older adults with kidney diseases.
She has served ASN as chair of the Geriatric Nephrology Advisory Group and as a member of the Program Committee and the Grants Committee. She has served on the Program Committee of National Kidney Foundation clinical meetings. She has been on Advisory Committees on CKD of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was a member of the committee that wrote the VA/Department of Defense Practice Guideline for Management of Chronic Kidney Disease in Primary Care.
Dr. O'Hare is on the editorial boards of CJASN, JASN, the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease, the Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease, and JAMA Internal Medicine and previously was associate editor of CJASN.
She received her medical degree from the University of Virginia, followed by an internal medicine residency at Stanford University Medical Center and a nephrology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.
Connie Rhee, MD, MS
Dr. Rhee is associate professor of medicine and public health and interim chief of the Division of Nephrology, Hypertension, and Kidney Transplantation at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She is also director of clinical and translational research, medical director of dialysis, and vice-chair of research in the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Rhee leads a robust research program of clinical trials and prospective and retrospective observational studies focused on the intersection of kidney diseases, nutrition, and endocrinology and metabolism. Her studies, centered on endo-nephrology and the conservative and preservative management of advanced kidney diseases, have been supported by multiple National Institutes of Health, National Kidney Foundation, American Thyroid Association, and industry grants. She has published more than 200 manuscripts to date.
Dr. Rhee mentors a wide cadre of trainees in the areas of nephrology, nutrition science, endocrinology and metabolism, public health, biostatistics, and related disciplines.
She is incoming editor-in-chief of CJASN and currently serves on the editorial board. She serves as associate editor of BMC Nephrology, Cardiorenal Medicine, and Seminars in Dialysis and is also on the editorial boards of the Journal of Renal Nutrition and Kidney International.
Her contributions to the field have been recognized with several awards, including the National Kidney Foundation and Council on Renal Nutrition Joel D. Kopple Award.
Dr. Rhee completed her medical school training at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and her residency and chief residency at the Oregon Health & Science University. She pursued a clinical nephrology fellowship and postdoctoral research training at the Brigham and Women's Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital. She received a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Distinguished Clinical Service Award
Eric L. Wallace, MD, FASN
Dr. Wallace is professor of medicine, co-medical director of home dialysis, and medical director of the rare genetic kidney disease programs at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
Recognizing the promise of telehealth to deliver services to remote areas, in 2015, he began providing one of the first comprehensive telehealth visits to an older patient on home dialysis in a rural area. The success of this approach led to Dr. Wallace becoming the medical director of telehealth for The UAB health system in 2017.
He has initiated numerous telehealth programs, such as for stroke and critical care, that have significantly improved delivery of care and revenue in rural hospitals in Alabama. He oversaw the transition of care to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed a 280-fold increase in telehealth across the health system. Dr. Wallace has continued to focus on sustaining telehealth and delivery of care to those with geographic barriers to accessing care.
His research has focused on eliminating geographic and socioeconomic barriers to specialized care, with an emphasis on home dialysis and rare diseases, such as Fabry disease. He is expanding the telemedicine platform he established for his studies on home dialysis to create a network and establish processes to allow physicians at UAB to provide care across the state to patients whose travel is limited by geographic or financial constraints. He hopes these efforts can help address physician workforce distribution issues and access to care across the country.
Dr. Wallace received his MD from The UAB School of Medicine, where he also completed an internal medicine residency and served as chief resident. After completing a clinical fellowship in nephrology at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Wallace joined the faculty at UAB.
Michael Heung, MD, MS, FASN
Dr. Heung is professor of medicine, clinical chief of nephrology, and medical director of the acute dialysis program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
His research and clinical interests have focused on acute kidney injury (AKI) and critical care nephrology. His particular areas of interest include optimizing safety of continuous renal replacement therapy, determining predictors of renal recovery following AKI, exploring novel approaches to detecting fluid overload, and investigating pharmacokinetics in patients who are critically ill with AKI.
As an investigator at the University of Michigan Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center, Dr. Heung examines AKI measures and outcomes on several federally funded projects, including the U.S. Renal Data System, the Veterans Affairs kidney disease registry, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chronic kidney disease surveillance system.
He currently serves ASN on the AKINow initiative, the COVID-19 Committee, and the Current and Emerging Threats Workgroup. He is associate editor of Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease. He has received many teaching and mentorship awards.
Dr. Heung obtained his medical degree from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and served as chief resident during his internal medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati. He then completed his nephrology fellowship at the University of Michigan. He also received a master's degree from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.