2022 Award Winners
We are proud to announce our 2022 Awards of Excellence winners.
View Awards Criteria and Past Winners
Excellence in Research
Since joining SHP, Dr. Gohel has worked diligently to establish both his teaching portfolio as well as his research program, and through those efforts has been an outstanding colleague to researchers both inside and outside SHP.
He has developed exciting new research collaborations with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Bronx VA Hospital and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. As a result of his outstanding efforts and excellence in research, he received a New Jersey Health Foundation grant, NJACTS methods grant, and is a site lead and co-Investigator on an NIH/NEI RO1 grant awarded to NJIT for a multi-site, multi-institution clinical trial. In total, since joining SHP, he has published 13 peer reviewed high impact articles, 4 as first author.
Over the last several years, in addition to his own research, he has made significant contributions to the Department of Health Informatics by leveraging research knowledge into teaching by embedding the latest analytical and research methodologies into the curriculum. As a result, he has been nominated three times for the SHP excellence in teaching award, a distinct honor.
The primary focus of his research has been on quantifying functional brain differences in neuroclinical populations across different types of fMRI signal. He is an outstanding research collaborator, contributing his strong analytics, informatics, machine learning and neuroimaging expertise in collaboration with investigators across different fields and projects. Dr. Gohel embodies what it is to be a team scientist. He is thoughtful and collaborative, treat colleagues with the highest respect, and is always working towards the greater good in his research.
Excellence in Teaching
Dr. Vyas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Informatics. Her academic and professional experience includes data mining, data analytics, image processing, outcome analysis, and clinical decision support systems. Dr. Vyas’ philosophy of teaching is to empower all students to reach their full potential in an inclusive environment. As a full-time teaching faculty, she teaches multiple programming and analytics related courses including SAS, Python, Advanced Python, and SQL. These courses help students learn the basics of data analytics, project planning, and programming and improve their ability to logically think through real-world data science problems. Her primary mission is to teach advanced and meaningful coursework, which provides students’ with the skills that will make them marketable for positions in the industry upon graduation. She believes that teaching is a systematic way to transfer knowledge that helps students excel personally and professionally.
Colleagues speak of Dr. Vyas’ love for her students and passion for teaching. She routinely receives extremely positive feedback from her student evaluations and has been nominated for the excellence in teaching award four times. Dr. Vyas’ students speak to her unique ability to convey difficult concepts and techniques by utilizing real world examples in her curriculum. One student stated in her nomination “I’ve been through multiple programs in my life, a bachelors and two masters, and she’s the only professor that has made a large impact in my life”. Another student summed it up well: “Quite Simple” she said, “she is excellent!”
Distinguished Alumnus
Dr. LaCon has used the knowledge and skills gained through her studies to make outstanding contributions to health care, especially in the greater Newark area, in education, and to research.
She first distinguished herself when she was selected for the prestigious Rehabilitation Services Administration scholarship both as a master’s and again as a doctoral student.
She and her husband went to establish BLESSED Ministries, Inc. BMI is a $1.4 million 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Newark with a mission to work with businesses and employ individuals who have barriers to employment. This includes formerly incarcerated individuals, people with disabilities and people on public assistance.
The agency maintains a remarkable 180-day employment retention rate of at least 70%. As another indicator of quality, BMI maintains accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities and is an approved vendor from the New Jersey Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services.
Dr. LaCon also leads Urban Tools of Change, which uses YouTube to provide wellness and recovery tips for the urban community dealing with mental health issues. These are based on the principles and methodology of psychiatric rehabilitation, the focus of her doctoral degree.
Dr. LaCon embodies the virtues, drive and direction that we wish to see in our graduates.
Distinguished Service
Dr. Sackey joined Rutgers, School of Health Professions in 2018 and has an appointment in the School of Public Health, Department of Urban-Global Public Health, and with others started the public health nutrition concentration.
Dr. Sackey has shown leadership, guidance, and research to advance the RBHS community by tackling food insecurity.
The research of Dr. Sackey with other nutrition faculty and students was a major influence on creating the RBHS Food Pantry Working Group Committee. Surveys in 2019 and 2020 found that nearly 25% of RBHS students identified as food insecure on a regular or intermittent basis. That worsened with the onset of COVID-19.
We know that health and hunger are intertwined; thus, the Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) Food Pantry was established in September 2021. The pantry is located on the GB level of the Stanley S. Bergen building and it is open on Tuesdays from 1:30 to 4:00 pm.
Currently, the Food Pantry serves between 80 to 110 clients each week. Each client is allowed to take enough food for their families and those who can transport the food do so. In terms of the total weight of food products, the Food Pantry has distributed over 30,000 pounds of food as well as non-food items like dental, self-care products, and diapers.
The coordination of work is ongoing, including obtaining food from the Community Food Bank of NJ, suggesting monetary or healthy food donations, organizing, and stocking shelves, recruiting volunteers, and distributing foods in a safe manner. There is also an emergency food access request available via email.
While this is not the work of one person, Dr. Sackey‘s dedication and support keep the momentum of the pantry going.
Dr. Sackey’s perseverance and advocacy on behalf of the RBHS community is unwavering. Because of his leadership, students can focus on classroom learning and engagement.
In addition to working on food security at RBHS, Dr. Sackey has worked since 2020 with the North Jersey Community Research Initiative. Here he has studied the nutrition and food security and cardiovascular disease risk of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTQI) populations. He also published on food security in his home country of Ghana. His curriculum vitae reflects 10 research articles on food security demonstrating his commitment and scholarship in this area.
Stanley S. Bergen, Jr. Medal of Excellence
Dr. Martinago is unique among our graduate students because as a practicing medical doctor and surgeon specializing in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. Now an OD/PhD, Dr. Martingano engages in translational and interdisciplinary research, connecting his medical practice with his expertise in biomedical informatics to improve clinical decision-making to benefit patients.
During his PhD program, Dr. Martingano conducted two major research projects. The first focused on the optimal choice of antibiotic treatment for pre-term, pre-labor rupture of membranes which is condition that disproportionately impacts under-represented patient populations. This work was published in Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics and Gynecology, a tier 1 journal. The second project focused on the emerging problem of antibiotic shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, published in the prestigious PLOS ONE journal. In his nomination of Dr. Martingano, Dr. Shankar Srinivasan said “As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved, Dr. Martingano quickly recognized that antibiotics repurposed to treat COVID-19 left shortages of these treatments for patients that required cesarean deliveries. His study offered a solution for patients ‘here and now’ and truly saved lives.”
Dr. Martingano’s work has already received a lot of attention from the medical and academic community, including featured articles by the OBG Project and by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy from the University of Minnesota, as well as four abstracts published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Dr. Martingano’s dream has been to be as a physician-scientist, closely incorporating mathematical and statistical modeling with clinical practice to improve patient outcomes. He is clearly well on his way.
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