2026 Awards

Paul Harari, MD ’84, has devoted his career to advancing the care of patients with head and neck cancer through groundbreaking clinical and laboratory research. He has led national and international clinical trials that established new standards of care, directed a continuously funded laboratory program for more than 35 years investigating the combination of molecularly targeted therapies with radiation, and served as principal investigator of the $15 million Wisconsin Head and Neck Cancer SPORE, the first Specialized Program of Research Excellence grant ever awarded in the state of Wisconsin. His areas of research emphasis include the interaction of molecular growth inhibitors combined with radiation and the use of conformal radiation treatment techniques to diminish normal tissue toxicity.

Harari is currently a radiation oncologist and an endowed professor in the Department of Radiation Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. As chairman of the Department of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin from 2007-2024, he oversaw extraordinary growth, more than doubling faculty size and more than tripling federal research funding while helping elevate the institution into a national leader in cancer research and care.

A seasoned leader, Harari previously served as associate director of translational research for the UW Carbone Cancer Center from 2007-2016 and as director of the UW Radiation Oncology Residency Training Program from 1997 until 2007.

His scholarly contributions include more than 275 peer-reviewed publications, 40 book chapters, and more than 325 scientific abstracts, reflecting a career dedicated to discovery and innovation.

He has also made significant contributions to education and professional service, including: directing the University of Wisconsin Radiation Oncology Residency Program for a decade; serving on the ASTRO Board of Directors and leading the organization as president and chairman of the board; and serving as president of the American Society for Radiation Oncology and the American Radium Society.

Judith A. Woodfolk, MBChB, PhD ’00, is a physician-scientist and professor of medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where she serves as director of the Medical Scientist Training Program. She has devoted her entire professional career to UVA, spending more than three decades advancing our understanding of human immunity and its role in allergic disease and virus-induced respiratory illnesses.

Woodfolk’s pioneering studies defined how allergen-specific T cells recognize and respond to environmental allergens and identified mechanisms regulating allergic inflammation and immune tolerance. Her research uncovered immune mechanisms across a broad spectrum of allergic disease, including food allergy, atopic dermatitis, asthma, and allergen tolerance. Her studies of allergen-specific T cells and immune regulation by IL-10 provided foundational principles that still guide the development of modern allergen immunotherapies. These early career contributions to the field were recognized with the 2008 John E. Salvaggio Memorial Lectureship of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

In recent years, Woodfolk has emerged as an international leader in translational immunology, using human rhinovirus challenge models and advanced immune profiling methods to investigate severe asthma and the consequences of respiratory viral infection. Her laboratory has helped pioneer machine learning approaches to identify rare antigen-specific immune cells that can be applied across diverse disease settings. In a 2025 Nature Immunology study, her team identified distinct immune programs linked to the severity of restrictive lung disease following COVID-19, providing new insights into mechanisms driving persistent post-viral lung injury and potential therapeutic targets for long COVID.

Beyond her scientific achievements, Woodfolk has served as co-chair of the UVA School of Medicine Research Advisory Committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she brought together multidisciplinary teams to create and lead the UVA COVID Biorepository, a resource that accelerated critical research across numerous disciplines. As co-director of UVA’s NIH-funded Medical Scientist Training Program, she helped secure federal support for training future physician-scientists, while her mentorship of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, and physician-scientists has shaped careers across the country. Her expertise has been recognized through service on the FDA Allergenic Products Advisory Committee, appointment to the NIH Immunity and Host Defense Study Section, and election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Brynne Sullivan, MD ‘11, Res ‘14, Fel ’17, is the Randall and Liza Moorman Associate Professor in Advanced Medical Analytics and an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. A proud graduate of the UVA School of Medicine Class of 2011, she remained at UVA to complete her pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship before joining the faculty.

Sullivan is an internationally recognized physician-scientist whose research focuses on predictive analytics and the use of physiologic data to provide earlier warning of adverse outcomes in vulnerable patients. She leads multidisciplinary, multicenter clinical and translational research programs that leverage advanced computational approaches to improve diagnosis, risk stratification, and patient outcomes. Her work bridges neonatology, biomedical engineering, data science, and clinical medicine, with the goal of transforming continuous physiologic monitoring into actionable clinical insights.

Her research has been supported through numerous competitive awards, including an institutional iTHRIV KL2 Career Development Award, an NIH K23 Career Development Award, an NIH R18, an NIH R01, and multiple foundation grants. Through these efforts, she has advanced the field of predictive analytics and helped establish new approaches for translating physiologic data into meaningful clinical decision support.

In 2024, Sullivan was named director of the UVA Center for Advanced Medical Analytics, where she leads interdisciplinary efforts to accelerate innovation in data-driven healthcare. She was also appointed the Randall and Liza Moorman Endowed Chair in Advanced Medical Analytics. In recognition of her achievements in research, education, and service, she was awarded tenure in 2026.

Laura Adang, MD ‘09, PhD ’07, is an associate professor in the Division of Neurology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Department of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves as CHOP’s Leukodystrophy Fellowship Director and Course Director for the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) Predoctoral Preparatory Program (P3), where she mentors clinical research coordinators nationwide to cultivate the next generation of rare disease clinician-scientists.

Following her research on viral immune evasion in the UVA laboratory of Dean Kedes, MD, PhD, and an introduction to child neurology under Robert Rust, Jr., MD, Adang completed her pediatrics and child neurology residencies at CHOP, a specialized fellowship in multiple sclerosis and white matter disorders, and a Master’s of Translational Research at the Perelman School of Medicine.

Today, she specializes in diagnosing and treating children affected by leukodystrophies, including innovative gene therapy approaches. Her research focuses on clinical trial readiness for rare neurodegenerative conditions of childhood, supported by millions in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and family foundations. She also receives support through the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium for her work in multiple sulfatase deficiency (MSD). Her contributions to the field earned her the 2024 Thomas Dierks Award for Impact in MSD Research.

Driven by her clinical work, Adang is a passionate advocate for rare disease policy, particularly newborn screening for treatable leukodystrophies. She co-authored the national nomination to add Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) to the recommended newborn screening panel and was recognized with the 2024 Clinician Champion Award from the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL).

 

Timothy R.B. Johnson, MD ’75, was a physician, educator, and global health leader whose life’s work transformed the care of women and families across Africa and inspired generations of physicians, trainees, and health professionals around the world.

Beginning in 1986, in response to the global crisis of maternal mortality highlighted by the WHO Safe Motherhood Initiative, Johnson dedicated himself to building sustainable medical education and training programs in Ghana. Through more than 70 visits over four decades, he helped establish and nurture a nationally accredited obstetrics and gynecology training system that has trained and certified more than 250 obstetrician-gynecologists, achieved greater than 98 % in-country retention, and become an international model for workforce development. Under his guidance, the number of residency training programs expanded from two to eleven, while fellowships in family planning, gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology, and reproductive endocrinology were established, dramatically expanding access to specialized care for women throughout the region.

His impact extended well beyond physician training. By fostering the development of midwives, community health workers, medical educators, and health system leaders, Johnson helped create a lasting infrastructure that contributed to substantial improvements in maternal health outcomes, including a dramatic reduction in maternal mortality in Ghana. His philosophy of sustainable capacity building and partnership led to the successful replication of these programs in Ethiopia and Rwanda, influencing global health education far beyond a single country.

Equally important was Johnson’s dedication to mentorship. Through decades of bi-directional exchanges involving students, residents, fellows, and faculty, he cultivated leaders who today serve as professors, department chairs, deans, university presidents, and health advocates across Africa and the United States.

Timothy R.B. Johnson died in 2025. This award is presented posthumously.

Steven K. Wilson, MD ’66, FACS, FRCS, has over five decades of experience and expertise in prosthetic urology as a physician, surgeon, author, filmmaker, editor, professor, inventor, researcher, and innovator of new penile implant and urinary sphincter surgical techniques.

Wilson is a former professor of urology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Ark., and the namesake of the university’s Steven K. Wilson Chair of Prosthetic Urology. Through 53 years of practice and over 11,000 implants, he has performed prosthesis surgery in 60 countries and has been a visiting professor at most American training programs and numerous foreign centers. He is an author of 298 peer-reviewed publications as well as 23 textbook chapters, 57 surgical videos, and he is editor-in-chief of eight prosthetic urology textbooks. Wilson was the founder of Video Journal of Sexual Medicine, serving for seven years as editor-in-chief.  2027 will debut the 1st Edition of Wilson and Mulcahy’s Prosthetic Urology by Elsevier Publications.

Wilson is most recognized for his innovation of new surgical techniques, which have helped make the complex implantation of penile implants and sphincters less invasive. Many of the timely enhancements to the penile prosthesis and special implantation instruments/retractors are the result of Wilson’s inventions and clinical research. An editorial in the Journal of Sexual Medicine noted that Wilson “has performed and taught more penile implant surgeries than anyone in history.”

Wilson is the 2010 recipient of the St. Paul’s Medal of the British Association of Urologic Surgeons, which is given annually to a single urologist outside of the United Kingdom who has contributed significantly to world urology. In 2013, the 23rd F. Brantley Scott Award of Excellence was designated to Wilson. In 2017, he received the inaugural “Living Legend Award” of the Society of Urologic Prosthetic Surgeons. In 2021 the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA) honored Wilson with its Lifetime Achievement Award in Sexual Medicine, and in 2024, the SMSNA established the Steven Wilson Lecture on Prosthetic Urology. Wilson has taught the Instructional Prosthesis Course at the annual American Urological Association (AUA) meeting for the past 26 years. In 2020, the AUA established the “Wilson Cup,” an annual recognizing an outstanding prosthetic urologist worldwide. He is also the recipient of the 2022 Distinguished Service Award from the International Society of Sexual Medicine.

Melissa M. Wu, MD ‘92, MBA, FACEP, is a long-time, dedicated supporter of the UVA School of Medicine and the UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation.

She is the immediate past president of the UVA Medical School Foundation’s Board of Trustees and has served since 2010 as the Class of 1992 representative. Wu has led multiple reunion committee efforts for her class. She has also generously shared her time with current medical students as a mentor through the MAA’s MedShare student-alumni mentorship program. Our most avid social media supporter and ambassador, you may recognize her face from our Instagram account, where she can be seen reconnecting with classmates and fellow alumni across the country, catching up at a coffee shop, carb loading before her next big marathon, or even convincing some to run with her. Over the past couple years, she has also connected with classmates via a virtual Friendsgiving (an idea borrowed from the Class of 1993).

Trained as an emergency physician, Wu recently retired after working for 20 years at Southern NH Health, spending the last 17 years as Immediate Care division chair and medical director. During her career, she played an integral role in the development of both a new urgent care program at the Johns Hopkins University Emergency Department and a new IC program at Southern NH Health at a time when urgent cares were in their infancy. From 2009 to 2019, she successfully led the expansion of the IC program from a single site to seven and the formation of a division of the health system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led IC through the uncertainties and challenges of site closures, staffing changes, and high COVID-19 related patient volume. In her role as division chair, she served on the governing board of the multi-specialty physician group of SNHH and as a member of several committees involved in QA, population health, telemedicine, and antibiotic stewardship.

Outside of work, Wu has combined her passions for emergency medicine and running by volunteering in marathon medical tents, working for several years at the Baltimore Marathon and, more recently, being in charge of medical operations at the Gate City Marathon.