Department news | June 30, 2017
One way our department celebrates faculty mentoring is through our Wayne J. Katon Outstanding Mentor Award. This annual award recognizes a Department faculty member who demonstrates sustained commitment to the creative, scholarly, professional and personal development of mentees. The award honors Wayne Katon, MD, a gifted and dedicated mentor who supervised medical students, psychiatry residents, research fellows and junior faculty across several departments, many of whom have become principal investigators of their own grant funded research programs. He directed an NIH-funded T-32 Fellowship Program in Primary Care Psychiatry for over 25 years that produced more than 30 successful researchers at the interface of medicine and psychiatry, including many members of our department.
The recipient of this year’s award is Mary Larimer, PhD. Her nomination packet detailed a remarkable generosity and investment in mentees throughout her career that has resulted in a deep and lasting impact on many individuals across a broad range of disciplines — their success as independent investigators is a credit to her thoughtfulness and time. A commitment to developing the next generation of researchers is central to Dr. Larimer’s work, and she is a role model for many faculty members in the department.
Other faculty members nominated for their outstanding mentoring were Kate Comtois, PhD, MPH, Maria Monroe-DeVita, PhD, Tracy Simpson, PhD and Jürgen Unützer, MD, MPH, MA. The 2016 recipient was Raphe Bernier, PhD.
Thank you to Lydia Chwastiak, MD, MPH, who chaired the selection committee, to the committee members for all of their work, and to those department members who submitted nominations on behalf of their mentors. Thank you also to all of our faculty who mentor our trainees, junior faculty, and staff.
