Press Release
October 19, 2007
Contact: Jerry Carey
Phone: (856) 566-6171
careyge@umdnj.edu
UMDNJ Researchers Receive National Honors
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STRATFORD — Two researchers from the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine received national awards presented by the American Osteopathic Foundation during the annual convention of the American Osteopathic Association held recently in San Diego. Dr. Robert Nagele, a professor of Medicine at the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging, received the Beehler Research Mentor of the Year award. Dr. Theresa Scholl, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, received the Irvin M. Korr Research Award. These awards are among the four presented annually by the foundation to acknowledge excellence in research and mentorship.
“The honors achieved by Dr. Nagele and Dr. Scholl are all the more remarkable because the American Osteopathic Foundation only confers four of these highly competitive research awards each year,” said Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, interim dean of the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine. “The groundbreaking work of Dr. Nagele and Dr. Scholl exemplifies the strong research mission at our school and their national acclaim moves us another step closer to attaining our vision to be the best osteopathic medical school in the nation.”
Dr. Nagele, of Washington Township, joined the research faculty at the medical school in 1983. He is the author of more than 90 articles and book chapters involving his research on two aging-related problems: dementia (especially Alzheimer’s disease) and cancer, with particular concentration on the cellular mechanisms behind the progression of these devastating clinical problems. At the school, Dr. Nagele has been involved in mentoring more than 100 students, including undergraduate medical students, Masters and Doctoral candidates, and research fellows. His former students have gone on to careers in many areas of science and health care, becoming both research leaders in industry and at such prestigious institutions as Harvard University and Thomas Jefferson University.
Dr. Scholl, of Penn Valley (PA), has been a faculty member at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine for 25 years, and is a nationally renowned investigator whose research integrates basic science and epidemiology. Her work, which has received consistent support from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, as well as state, local, and private sources, focuses on risk reduction and health promotion in teenage, poor, and minority women, with the goal improving the outcomes of pregnancy. Because much of her research has been in the city of Camden, it has also made a great contribution to the health of the community, improving the well-being of both the current and future generations of the city.
The UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine (http://som.umdnj.edu/) is dedicated to providing excellence in medical education, research and health care for New Jersey and the nation. An emphasis on primary health care and community health services reflects the school’s osteopathic philosophy, with centers of excellence that demonstrate its commitment to developing clinically skillful, compassionate and culturally competent physicians from diverse backgrounds, who are prepared to become leaders in their communities.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
