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PLEASE NOTE: THIS SESSION ON TUESDAY
July 10, 2018
Lunch Colloquium
Larry Taulbee
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
It may be summer, but there has been no letup of activity here. We have had some great Lunch Colloquiums and there are more to come. In addition, 25 members went together to see As You Like It at the Shakespeare Tavern, and as you can read below had a wonderful time.
It was a real treat to hear Susan Margulies, Chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, talk about the department and her research. In terms of national rankings, the department is one of Emory's best and thanks to Gretchen Schulz's article, you can perhaps begin to understand why that is.
Al Padwa's Lunch Colloquium set a record: the largest number of members who tried to register but had to be put on a wait list because of the limited number of seats available. That is not the type of record we want to set, and I really regret that so many were not able to come. We have not been able to find a better solution than to have our Lunch Colloquiums here, which then restricts us to the number of people who can fit into our room. That is the main reason we ask that all those who plan to attend register. Fortunately, we have a summary of Al's talk below, written by Bee Nahmias, and we do have a good recording of Al's talk that will soon be on our website. Larry Taulbee's Lunch Colloquium next week promises to be no less interesting than our previous ones, so do be sure to register!
Also of great interest to all of us is the announcement of the new Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs to whom we report. As you can read in the article below, we will now report to Tim Holbrook, and I think he is a great choice for that position.
Finally, I would like to thank Herb Benario for his many faithful years of helping to edit this newsletter. He noticed, and let me know of, an egregious error I made in an early issue. Since then, he has faithfully helped to prevent such errors in subsequent issues. He has decided to step down from his position, and he will be sorely missed! If you would like to help edit the newsletter, please let me know.
I am very grateful to John Bugge and Gretchen Schulz for help with editing and proofing.
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Lunch Colloquium--Tuesday, July 10
Kein Geld, Kein Schweizer
The Luce Center
Room 130
11:30-1:00
Larry Taulbee, Associate Professor of Political Science Emeritus Click here to read more about this Lunch Colloquium
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Holbrook appointed Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Most of you are aware that the Emeritus College reports to Lynn Zimmerman, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. Lynn is retiring at the end of this academic year, and we hope she will then join us as a member! A national search was conducted for her replacement, and Provost McBride has just announced his choice (see below). I have known and worked with Tim Holbrook for a number of years and think we are fortunate to have him in that position.
The announcement:
I am pleased to announce that after a national search process Professor Timothy R. Holbrook has been appointed the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, effective August 1, 2018. Holbrook is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory and an internationally recognized patent law scholar. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1993, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1996. From 2012-2015 Holbrook served as Associate Dean of the Faculty at Emory Law. As the Associate Dean of the Faculty, Professor Holbrook successfully cultivated a rewarding scholarly environment for the Emory Law School faculty and worked with faculty affairs colleagues throughout Emory. In addition to his important role as the Associate Dean and member of the Emory Law School faculty, Professor Holbrook has developed a series of best practices to enhance the number of diverse faculty applicants and provided direction of, and vision for, the Law School's contributions to the academic mission of the broader Emory community. As the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Professor Holbrook will oversee activities that support faculty recruitment, retention, and success at the university level, including the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, the Emory University Emeritus College, the Tenure and Promotion Advisory Committee, and university policies that impact faculty life. You can read an Emory Report article on the announcement by clicking here.
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Lunch Colloquium--June 4 
Pediatric Concussion Biomechanics: What We Need to Know
Susan Margulies, Wallace H. Coulter Chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics
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Lunch Colloquium--June 18
Keeping Up with the Latest on Big Pharma, Drug Costs, and the Salutary Story of Cialis
Al Padwa, William P. Timme Professor of Chemistry Emeritus Click here to read below more information about this Lunch Colloquium
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New Members
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Distinguished Faculty Awards
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Wenger, McKay, and Mitchell
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Shakespeare Excursion Report
We Not Only Liked It-We LOVED It!
On Sunday evening, June 10, members of the Emeritus College (and family and friends) took over the Shakespeare Tavern, claiming the 25 seats I (Gretchen) had reserved for us on the main floor and in the nearby boxes to share the experience of the wonderful Atlanta Shakespeare Company production of As You Like It. And wonderful is just what it was. Even, as Celia says in the play itself, "most wonderful, wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping." Jeff Watkins, Artistic Director and CEO of the Company, had told me it was the best production of the play he had ever put together during his thirty-plus years at the ASC helm. And I, who have seen all of the many previous versions he was referencing, would have to agree. Indeed, in my view, it rivaled (and maybe surpassed) productions I've seen by top-notch companies elsewhere, including The Globe.
The cast was an accomplished (and extremely diverse) combo of "young 'uns," some fresh out of academic theater programs and/or time in the Apprentice Program at the Tavern, and "old 'uns," with years, up to and including the aforementioned thirty-plus years, of Tavern experience, but no less enthusiastic about making the most of their parts in the play for that. To hear old(ish) pros like Matt Nitchie make Jacques' "seven ages of man" speech fresh (and so funny and so sad) was an incomparable treat. Ditto hearing the pro-est of the pros, Tony Brown, deliver Hymen's "wedding hymn" while not one, not two, not three, but four pairs of lovers (!) marry at the end of the play. No one sings better than Tony. Really. Though Matt and many others in the production gave him some competition this time around--especially in the liveliest rendition of "It was a lover and his lass" I've ever heard ("with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino").
Of course, in this play, it's the young lovers (played so fittingly by young actors) who absorb most of our attention. And I can attest that we in the audience were as charmed by Rosalind (Sarah Newby Halicks) and Orlando (Chris Hecke) as they were by one another. Not to mention Celia and Oliver (when his miraculous conversion transforms him from a villain to a hero). Nor Touchstone (the jester, in a virtuoso turn by Anthony Peebles) and Audrey ("an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own"). Nor Silvius, the shepherd, and Phebe, the shepherdess (who only agrees to marry him when she discovers the woman who lurks in Rosalind's manly garb).
I won't go on (and on and on, as I obviously could). I'm just hoping to convey enough of the pleasures of the evening to encourage those of you who didn't join us in this "trip to the Tavern" to consider doing so next time, perhaps in a visit we'll schedule late in the fall or early in the winter. Why wait till next summer, after all? I think you'll find any visit to any production well worth making. And our own Brenda Bynum, doyenne of the Atlanta theater scene, thinks the same. As she put it in a recent email to me:
An evening at the Shakespeare Tavern is a true collaboration - theater there is not just something for which you buy a ticket to sit quietly in the dark and watch someone else do. The audience is acknowledged by the actors as an equal partner in the experience, and the quality of the performance is a direct reflection of the reciprocal commitment. It's an exhilarating departure from the norm and the energy lights up the room. As is said, "a good time is had by all!"
And that was certainly true on Sunday evening, June 10, when the EUEC took over the Shakespeare Tavern . . .
--Gretchen Schulz
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
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Lunch Colloquium--Tuesday, July 10
Kein Geld, Kein Schweizer: No Money, No Swiss
Larry Taulbee, Associate Professor of Political Science Emeritus
Larry Taulbee, winner of a Heilbrun Fellowship for research on the topic of mercenary forces, says that that the topic has many different aspects. But as a teaser for today, he asks us to consider the following. The French Foreign Legion has long been considered a mercenary force. Although commanded by officers from the regular French Army, it consists of non-citizen enlistees. The Legion formed the French contribution to Allied forces during the 1991 Gulf War. The question is, during the same war, what truly distinguished the French "mercenaries" from the American all-volunteer Army, which also included a considerable number of non-citizens. He would have us note also that The Economist wryly characterized the Gulf War as a "nice little earner for the United States." That's a teaser, for sure.
About Larry Taulbee:
Larry received a BA from Purdue University in 1964 and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in 1970. His specializations include international relations, international law and organization, and international security policy. Besides the use of mercenaries, his written work has addressed questions relating to the legal control of terrorism, the effectiveness of human rights initiatives, the International Criminal Court, and the utility of non-conventional defense strategies. He served as a member of the Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism for the Atlanta Olympic Games. He first came to Emory in 1968, so this year marks his 50th at Emory!
He writes the following about his Heilbrun project, which is the focus of his talk:
My project has the descriptive name of Kein Geld, Kein Schweizer: No Money, No Swiss-- Reflections on the Mercenary Option. Thirty-five years ago, a small item in the UN Chronicle caught my eye. The United Nations had appointed a Special Rapporteur and Committee to look into the use of mercenary troops. This took me somewhat by surprise because I thought the problem had passed with the end of the Nigerian Civil War. One influential author had observed that: "The mercenary world is permanently awash with activity." In an article, "Raiders of the Leased Art" (1987), I asserted that while I would not disagree with that statement, it missed the point. The critical questions did not center on the level of activity within the mercenary world, but the nature and extent of the intersection of the mercenary world with the world of political action at any particular point in time. I became very interested in the question of "Why do societies resort to mercenaries?" At base, whether an entity employs its own subjects or elects to use mercenaries is an economic transaction subject to supply and demand. Still, many other factors (or intervening variables) condition the nature and extent of the intersection between the two worlds. The long-term project has focused on questions relating to WHY various collective organizations (city states, states, empires, etc.) have elected to pay others for their defense rather than use subjects/citizens or, in the case of companies or private individuals, construct their own private armies. It encompasses a very broad historical range beginning with the use of mercenaries from, in H. C. Parkes' words, "time immemorial." The project does not attempt a systematic historical account, but rather presents a series of structured analytical "snapshots" of eras in which mercenaries were major players. The focus is on recurring patterns in terms of opportunity, cost, skills, performance, and problems.
Let me provide all with an interesting comparison to illustrate some problems. Intuitively we all just know that mercenaries are independent "soldiers for hire" who often work for governments other than their own. Yet let us consider the following. The U. S. army went all-volunteer in 1979. To attract recruits, the government significantly increased pay and benefits. A lot of green card holders (permanent resident aliens) joined in anticipation of receiving citizenship. Now, everyone also knows that the French Foreign Legion (FFL) is a mercenary force by definition because it employs soldiers from other countries. Yet, the FFL has officers from the French regular army, soldiers receive the same pay as those in equivalent grades in the regular French Army, and the Legion fights only for French goals. After five years of honorable service, one can apply for French citizenship. The American army and the FFL fought side by side in Desert Storm (1991). Given the enhanced pay to attract recruits for the American Army and the number of resident aliens who enlist, what really distinguishes the current volunteer American Army from the French Foreign Legion?
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Lunch Colloquium--June 4
Pediatric Concussion Biomechanics: What We Need to Know
On Monday, June 4, members of the Emeritus College (and their guests) enjoyed a most impressive presentation by a most impressive speaker, Susan Margulies, who is just completing her first year as the Wallace H. Coulter Chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, an innovative academic unit that is shared by both the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech and the School of Medicine at Emory. As Susan explained in the first portion of her program, the mission of this Department is two-fold: to educate and prepare students to reach the forefront of leadership in the fields of biomedical engineering; and to impact health care significantly by assembling a world-class faculty who shape the cutting edge of research in key biomedical areas. The Department can claim great success in fulfilling its mission, given evidence that has prompted those who know most about such programming to rank the undergraduate program # 1 in the nation and the graduate program # 2. But Susan doesn't intend to let the Department rest upon the laurels it can certainly claim. It was the possibility of doing even more even better that lured her from her professorship at the University of Pennsylvania to Atlanta (and Tech and Emory) last summer, and she shared the key elements of the Five-Year Plan that she and her colleagues (on both campuses, as well as stakeholders in the community) have developed since her arrival upon the scene. The goals articulated in that plan include expanded impact (that will brand Atlanta as THE hub for medical breakthroughs powered by engineering innovation), enhancement of engagement (with alumni and with industry, in particular), and enrichment of community (making the Department THE model for multi-institutional partnerships--and one that's busy training "inclusive leaders of diverse teams"). It's no wonder that the Department has attracted as many top-notch students as it has (more than 1000 undergraduates and almost 200 graduate students as of the spring of 2018) and as many top-notch faculty. And it's no wonder that the students and faculty working together in the top-notch research labs available to them have translated their work into so many meaningful (indeed celebrated) real-world applications. (Susan offered examples of some such--like Annabelle Singer's work on therapies for Alzheimer's, and James Dahlman's work on gene editing, and Krishnendu Roy's work on manufacturing living cells.) Susan followed her discussion of the mission and accomplishments of the Coulter Department with a discussion of the work that has been most dear to her heart and central to her career for many decades--work she is, of course, continuing here--and that is work on traumatic brain injury or TBI (in general) and pediatric concussion (in particular). She knew she was speaking to a room full of grandparents who have been alerted to the need for such work by more media coverage of the dangers sports might pose to their grandkids than was available when their kids were kids themselves. These men-and-women-of-a-certain-age really sat up and took notice as Susan began to speak of the challenges involved in research into the detection of TBI and the treatment of TBI and the prevention of TBI. As she explained, the study of human subjects who may have suffered concussion, even adults, is affected by issues with patients' awareness of and willingness to report their symptoms. And younger subjects may be quite unable to describe what they're experiencing. Granted, animal models can and do provide a controlled laboratory setting for relevant investigation, but most animal models involve more severe brain injuries than concussion, limiting their applicability to the human situations we care most about. Of late, work with animals is proving more applicable, however. (We won't soon forget the images of piglets and babies side by side, both wearing nets of neural monitors.) And emerging research in objective, involuntary neurofunctional metrics and biomarkers is bridging the gap between human and animal research and providing important new insights into the biomechanics of concussion, offering a rational foundation for both prevention and treatment. In concluding her presentation, Susan expressed the need for further work in three areas related to risk of injury: Issue 1 - Injury Risk Curves Depend on Accurate Positive and Negative Concussion Diagnosis; Issue 2 - Injury Risk Curves Depend on Accurate Measurement of Head Rotation Direction, Velocity, and Acceleration; Issue 3 - Injury Risk Thresholds will depend on age, sex, repeated exposure, inter-injury interval, and symptom severity/duration. And she expressed excitement about advances in research that may follow from the Coulter Department's recent formation of the Atlanta Concussion Coalition, a group that will be hosting a visit from the NCAA in August. As she noted, through a groundbreaking partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, the NCAA has invested $27.5 million since 2014 in research and related efforts aimed at developing better concussion treatment and policy. This initiative has already led to changes in college football playing rules and in the operation of football team practices, as well as the development of concussion protocols. The NCAA will continue funding this initiative at $2 million annually. And under a recent settlement awaiting court approval, the NCAA will spend an additional $70 million on a medical monitoring program for current and former college athletes. Maybe some of our aforementioned grandkids will benefit from this initiative and from similar initiatives in the many other sports that can cause TBIs (like cheerleading, even more apt to cause serious problems than sports we think of as especially culpable, like football and soccer). Onward and upward, Susan Margulies (and all of the other faculty and students of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering)! --Gretchen Schulz |
Lunch Colloquium--June 18
Keeping Up with the Latest on Big Pharma, Drug Costs, and the Salutary Story of Cialis
The Lunch Colloquium presentation by Dr. Al Padwa, the William P. Timmie Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, on Monday, June 18th, had so many people sign up to come that ten people were left on the waiting list. A first for our Lunch Colloquiums. Certainly the title pulled in other attendees, as it did me, "Keeping Up with the Latest on Big Pharma, Drug Costs, and the Salutary Story of Cialis." We are all interested in Big Pharma and why the same drugs cost so much more in the United States than in our neighbor, Canada, and in Europe and Asia, etc. We thought Al might provide some answers to that question. We were also interested in finding out how a drug developed for pulmonary hypertension turned out to have such an interesting side effect, treatment of erectile dysfunction, which made it so enormously popular.
Al began his talk with an illustration of his wide-ranging (and yet somehow related) interests with a slide titled "Molecules, Mobiles, and Mountains," referencing another talk he offered in a Colloquium some years ago. We saw a carbon molecule, a mountain scene, and a mobile. And he drew connections between his interests in doing chemistry and climbing mountains and making mobiles (examples of which can be found all over campus). As he segued into the main substance of his talk, he mentioned the lay person's definition of chemistry. Most do know that it addresses topics such as how atoms and molecules interact via chemical bonds to form new compounds. But he noted that lay persons also will say that chemistry addresses how men and women interact via physical bonds to form new relationships. He acknowledged that there's truth in that definition, too, and mentioned that he enjoys such a "bond" with someone he found on Match some years ago, a lovely woman in the audience to whom he introduced us.
It is clear that Al is also drenched in love for chemistry per se (love that occasionally overwhelmed the audience), especially organic chemistry, the study of the structure, properties, and reactions of carbon-containing compounds. These were originally limited to those produced by living organisms, but now include human-made substances such as plastics, petrochemicals, food, explosives, paints, cosmetics, . . . and pharmaceuticals -- drugs.
He spoke of a crucial current problem in medicine that organic chemists are trying to deal with, namely the growing number of multi-drug-resistant bacteria for treatment of which new drugs must be found. This is related to the fact that 70% of antibiotics go into the feed of animals (to foster more rapid growth). The result? The drug resistance that causes 400,000 illnesses, 23,000 deaths, and $34 billion in financial losses per year.
Al showed an illustration of a macrocyclic peptide, lotilibicin, which promises superior efficacy to vancomycin and tetracycline. He also showed us a slide of many cyclic carbon-containing molecules, representing top-selling drugs (there are thousands), many of them derived from natural substances such as soil or feces or plants. As he noted, much independent synthesis is done in chemistry labs, often university-associated, work that often requires a huge investment of time and expertise and funding, and then the promising drug is acquired by a pharmaceutical company that spends mightily to get it and may spend a lot more in bringing it to market, thus (in its view) justifying a high cost for the drug.
As illustration of how this process happens, Al mentioned our history here at Emory where Raymond Schinazi and Dennis Liotta developed the drug 5FT, since used very successfully as part of triple therapy for AIDS. The pharmaceutical company that is now Gilead bought it for $600 million dollars. No wonder they wanted to make that money back when the drug (in its drug-combo) finally made it to market. *
Medicinal Chemistry is very complex. It involves not only chemistry, but also toxicology (safety), pharmacokinetics, efficacy studies, external partners, evaluation, etc. New drugs usually result from the optimization of a "lead structure," involving much trial and error. The cost to develop a new drug averages $2 billion. Pharma will give a new drug a brand name and acquire a patent, generally lasting 10 years, but sometimes extended--a patent that allows them to charge what they will. But when the patent runs out, generic versions of the drug, copies that are identical, as required by the FDA. become available at much lower cost. (Thank heavens!)
Al Padwa then related his involvement as a legal expert in a lawsuit brought by three scientists at Vanderbilt University against Eli Lilly. Vanderbilt claimed that they had made a substantial contribution to what later became known as tadalafil (Cialis), by providing a lead structure. (Cialis not only helps erectile dysfunction, but also high-altitude sickness. This is where the speaker's mountaineering experience again relates to this presentation.) Vanderbilt had a small ($150,000) grant from Glaxo to research a substance that relaxes smooth muscle, useful in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension that plagues many climbers. When Glaxo (Eli Lilly) filed for a patent on Cialis, whose enormous financial potential in its other application had become apparent, Vanderbilt sued. In his testimony in the court, Dr. Padwa demonstrated the chemical structures of the various substances involved and showed that the lead structure Vanderbilt had provided was not related in any way to Cialis. And Vanderbilt lost the case. What a downer for them. And how uplifting for Lilly. So to speak.
* It is worth noting that Emory was involved very early in the development and clinical trials of antimicrobial drugs, when Pediatric Professor Andre Nahmias, as Co-PI, worked together with Yale Chemistry Professor Bill Prusoff in the first NIH Herpesvirus Antiviral Study Group in the early 1970s. Prusoff's student Raymond Schinazi joined Nahmias at Emory and in the 1980s was a Co-PI with him on an NIH Drug Discovery grant - and later on other grants with Prusoff (3TC) and with Emory Chemistry Professor Dennis Liotta (working on 5FT, as noted above) in the 1990s. Thanks to Bee Nahmias (and Andy) for this further information.
--Brigitte ("Bee") Buchmann Nahmias
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New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Steven Batterson, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Computer Science
Louis Gerard Martin, MD, Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Imaging Sciences
S. Russ Price, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Medicine
Rein Saral, MD, Professor Emeritus of Hematology and Medical Oncology
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Distinguished Faculty Awards
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| Nanette Wenger and Virgil Brown
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William Virgil Brown nominated Nanette for this award and in his nomination letter wrote:
I take great pleasure in nominating Nannette Wenger, MD, as a 2018 recipient of the Emory University Emeritus College Faculty Award of Distinction. She has made very significant professional contributions since retirement to Emory University and the Grady Memorial Hospital as well as contributions to local, state, regional, national, and international communities and professional organizations that reflect the "spirit of Emory."
Dr. Wenger joined the Emory faculty in Medicine as an instructor and a member of the medical staff at the Grady Memorial Hospital in 1959. She has been a major force in the cardiology teaching program nearly 60 years and continues to serve in this program after her retirement as a full-time faculty member. Her work outside the Emory Campus has achieved worldwide recognition for inspiring much needed study and education regarding improved cardiovascular health for women and for the elderly. She has been a very important volunteer in fostering programs and publications by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology in these areas and continues to work for advancement in healthcare since her retirement. Her expertise has been called upon by the National Institutes of Health in developing many new initiatives and in evaluating those of others. There is no question that she deserves this award, and I make this nomination with great enthusiasm.
Dr. Wenger is currently Emerita Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine. She continues as a teacher and Consultant to the Emory Heart and Vascular Center.
The following provides a resumé of her accomplishments over her term as an Emory Faculty member and those that have continued as a Professor Emerita. Her amazing productivity in writing scientific articles and position papers is evident in the total volume of more than 1600 manuscripts - averaging 27 per year for 59 years!
Coronary heart disease in women is one of Dr. Wenger's major clinical and research interests. She chaired the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Conference on Cardiovascular Health and Disease in Women. Dr. Wenger has expertise in cardiac rehabilitation. She chaired the World Health Organization Expert Committee on Rehabilitation after Cardiovascular Disease, and co-chaired the Guideline Panel on Cardiac Rehabilitation for the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. Dr. Wenger has had a longstanding interest in geriatric cardiology, is a Past President of the Society of Geriatric Cardiology, and was Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology for more than 15 years.
Dr. Wenger received the Outstanding Professional Achievement Award from Hunter College (1993), and the Physician of the Year Award of the American Heart Association (1998). In 1999, Dr. Wenger received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association and its Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award. She was chosen by Atlanta Women in Law and Medicine for a Shining Star Award recognizing her distinguished career in cardiology and women's health issues.
In 2000, Dr. Wenger was presented the James D. Bruce Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians for distinguished contributions in preventive medicine (2000). In 2002 she received the Distinguished Fellow Award of the Society of Geriatric Cardiology. In 2003, she was included in the National Library of Medicine Exhibition Changing the Face of Medicine: A History of American Women Physicians. Dr. Wenger received the Gold Heart Award, the highest award of the American Heart Association (2004).
At the Emory University 2004 Commencement, Dr. Wenger received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award of the University and the Evangeline Papageorge Alumni Teaching Award of the Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Wenger was selected to deliver the 2004 Laennec Lecture of the American Heart Association. In 2006, Dr. Wenger received the Hatter Award, international recognition for the advancement of cardiovascular science. The Georgia Chapter of the American College of Cardiology presented Dr. Wenger its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. She was selected Georgia Woman of the Year for 2010. In 2011, Dr. Wenger was selected to deliver the James B. Herrick lecture by the American Heart Association for her outstanding achievement in clinical cardiology. She was elected a member of Emory's 175 Historymakers during Emory's first 175 years.
In 2012, Dr. Wenger received the Charles R. Hatcher, Jr., MD, Award for Excellence in Public Health from Emory University, and was honored in 2013 by the establishment of the J. Willis Hurst, R. Bruce Logue, and Nanette K. Wenger Cardiovascular Society for Emory Cardiology Trainee Alumni. In 2013, she received the Inaugural Distinguished Mentor Award of the American College of Cardiology and the Arnall Patz Lifetime Achievement Award of the Emory University School of Medicine Medical Alumni Association. The American Society of Preventive Cardiology honored Dr. Wenger by naming an annual Nanette K. Wenger Distinguished Lecture focusing on cardiovascular prevention in women (2014). In 2015, she was awarded the Inaugural Bernadine Healy Leadership in Women's CV Disease Award, American College of Cardiology.
Dr. Wenger has participated as an author of several American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Clinical Practice Guidelines. She is past Chair, Board of Directors, Society for Women's Health Research. Dr. Wenger serves on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals and is a sought-after lecturer for issues related to heart disease in women, heart disease in the elderly, cardiac rehabilitation, coronary prevention, and contemporary cardiac care.
Donna Brogan also nominated Nanette for this award, writing:
There is no question that Dr. Wenger has had an illustrious, productive, and renowned career in the scientific, clinical, teaching, and administrative aspects of medicine. Her specialty areas include internal medicine, cardiology, women's health, geriatrics, cardiac rehabilitation, and sex differences in cardiovascular disease. Her awards and professional recognitions by scientific and clinical colleagues are stellar and numerous.
But what is even more striking is the broad range of important contributions that she has continued to make since Emory bestowed upon her the title of Professor Emerita in 2011, seven years ago.
First, she continues to this day substantial clinical, teaching, and administrative duties at Emory and its affiliated institutions. She is an active faculty member in the cardiology teaching program at Emory School of Medicine. She is a consultant to the Emory Heart and Vascular Center as well as a Founding and Continuing Consultant to the Emory Women's Heart Center. At Grady Memorial Hospital she is Director not only of the Cardiac Clinics, but also of the Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Laboratory. At Crawford Long Hospital (now Emory University Hospital Midtown) she is a member of the medical staff, consulting in internal medicine and cardiology.
Second, she has been a member of many writing groups sponsored by organizations such as NHLBI and the American Heart Association (AHA) that have recommended clinical guidelines for heart disease diagnosis and treatment, often noting that women and the elderly may exhibit presenting symptoms requiring treatments that are different from the established diagnostic and treatment "norms." One example is the first scientific statement from the American Heart Association published in 2016 in the journal Circulation and titled "Acute Myocardial Infarction in Women."
Third, she currently is on the editorial board of several journals, including Cardiology, Journal of Women's Health, Cardiology Today, and Journal of Geriatric Cardiology (of which she also is Associate Editor-in-Chief). In addition, she lists 17 journals for which she currently serves as manuscript reviewer, including JAMA, NEJM, BMJ, and several cardiology journals.
Fourth, she continues an active research program, resulting in about 140 publications since 2011. Some selected titles from 2017 that are understandable by all include: "Women and Heart Disease: An Evolving Saga," "Tailoring Cardiovascular Risk Assessment and Prevention for Women: One Size Does Not Fit All," "Personal and Professional Lives of Cardiologists Vary Between Sexes," "Cardiovascular Problems in Elderly Patients," and "Cardiac Rehabilitation in Older Adults."
Fifth, she currently has about 25 manuscripts submitted for publication. Selected titles include: "Hypertension in Women across the Lifespan," "Current Status: Barriers and Future Research in Sex Differences across the Lifespan: A Focus on Cardiovascular Disease and Metabolism." and "Drug Prescribing in Older Adults with Cardiovascular Disease."
Sixth, since 2011 she has received about 25 honors and awards for her work and contributions. They include (1) the 2012 Charles Hatcher award from Emory for excellence in public health, (2) the 2013 inaugural Distinguished Mentor Award from the American College of Cardiology, (3) the establishment in 2014 of the Nanette K. Wenger Distinguished Lecture to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology, and (4) the inaugural Bernadine Healy Leadership in Women's Cardiovascular Disease Award from the American College of Cardiology.
So, with all of this professional activity since emerita status seven years ago, it does not seem like Nanette is "retired" at all! We are grateful for her continuing research and teaching that is directly related to many of us: the elderly, both women and men, and common health challenges in our age group.
Postscript: It might be of interest to know that there was some initial concern that Nanette might not be eligible for this award, with some people thinking that she was not retired, and so not eligible. Of course the answer was that she was indeed retired, but you couldn't know that from observing her activity. Another issue was, with such a distinguished career (and a CV of 161 pages!) could the award be made just for her activities in retirement? Again, the answer was a clear yes, as indicated in the nominations above. This award is to one of our members who has shown, as have the other awardees, that one can continue to have a distinguished career in retirement!
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Faculty Activities
Corinne A. Kratz Emory Director, African Critical Inquiry Program Professor Emerita of Anthropology and African Studies
Cory reports, "The African Critical Inquiry Program is in the midst of reviewing applications. We've just made an award for the 2019 Workshop. We're still in the midst of reviewing student applications for this year's Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards, but will have decisions and announcements on those by the end of June. I was in Cape Town in March for this year's workshop, and presented a paper called "Where Did You Cry?: Crafting Categories, Narratives, and Affect through Exhibit Design."
Holly York
Senior Lecturer Emerita of French
Holly writes:
"It's like Road Scholar for poets," explained one of my fellow workshoppers as I arrived at La Romita, happy to be in the idyllic hills of Umbria after the madness of Fiumicino Airport. For o ver 50 years, La Romita has been a haven for painters who are drawn to the shimmering light and the scenery of the surrounding hillside towns. But we were there to write, at a two-week retreat led by San Francisco poet Kim Addonizio.
We were housed in what from the 16th to the 19th century had been a Capuchin monastery, high on a hill overlooking the town of Terni. Among the olive trees and sheep, our days were structured by the songs of birds and that most delightful music, the bell call to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nothing to do but write to an engaging prompt, show up for evening workshop with the fruit of our labors, and set off on jaunts to discover lovely old towns with ancient stone walls among fields of wild poppy, hollyhock, and broom. A  Roman aqueduct might surprise us in the background. We saw Assisi, Todi, Tarquinia, Orvieto, Sangemini, and the Marmore Falls featured in Byron, Dante and Vergil, and sometimes we "had" to make the 90-minute bus trek to Rome.
One Rome trip featured a pilgrimage to the Keats and Shelley House beside the Spanish Steps, followed by a pilgrimage to the Non-Catholic Cemetery where we read works of Keats, Shelley, and Beat poet Gregory Corso beside their graves. Another highlight of our retreat was an evening in the former monastery church where we read our own poems to the music of a local rock band, with songs especially matched to our work.
After two weeks perfumed by linden and jasmine, I returned to magnolia and gardenia with a pocketful of new poems and a satchel full of memories, but alas, no friendly bells to call me to the table.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
Did anyone recognize Florence Candler Harris Hall from our last walk? It's such a beautiful structure with many ornate details on its exterior. It is one of the many residence halls on campus - home to undergraduates through the years. It was constructed in 1929 and is named for Florence Candler Harris, older sister of Asa Candler, Warren Candler, and John S. Candler. Nine of her nieces and nephews contributed funds for the building. It's on Clifton Road across from the new part of Emory Hospital. The next time you are in the area, take a look at the wonderful little details of the building.
For our next walk, let's go somewhere cooler, less humid, and away from the thunderstorms we've had lately. This spot on the main campus is a place where I think there's more activity at night than during the day....
Where will you find this on the Emory campus?
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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