Class Notes

School of Medicine and Dentistry

Alumni Achievement Award

• Wendi Kuhnert-Tallman ’95M (MS), ’99M (PhD) is the associate director for laboratory sciences at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She works with partners throughout the United States and around the world to prevent illness, disability, and death from infectious diseases. She has authority over the CDC’s high contamination laboratory and provides leadership for the Center’s laboratory and laboratory services, spanning six divisions and 18 laboratory branches. Kuhnert-Tallman has led teams that have tackled such epidemics as the HIV-AIDS and hepatitis B and C virus, Ebola, and most recently, the Zika virus. In less than two decades, she has made significant contributions to the field of public health microbiology and biosafety at the highest national level, tracking disease outbreaks and their impact, while coordinating efforts to manage, contain, and ultimately cure diseases.

Alumni Service Award

• Lawrence Nazarian ’64M (MD), ’66M (Res) is a clinical professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Dentistry and a clinical teacher in the Resident Continuity Clinic at Strong Memorial Hospital. He joined the faculty as well as Rochester’s Panorama Pediatric Group in 1969, after two years as a medical officer in the United States Army. He has taught at nearly every level, from first-year medical students to continuing medical education presentations for seasoned clinicians. He also served as editor-in-chief of Pediatrics in Review. Nazarian has been a generous supporter of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Golisano Children’s Hospital, and the James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute. He served as the giving chair for his 50th class reunion, and in 2003 was named the Gold Medal Award recipient by the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Dean’s Medal

• Richard Aab has built 15 companies over the last 40 years, spanning a broad spectrum of industries, including telecommunication services, software development, wealth advisory and management, energy consulting and resale, payroll, health care, and innovative design and development. Today he is the CEO of four start-up companies: Idea Boxx, a company dedicated to designing and manufacturing products that improve productivity for businesses across industries; and Hydra Rinse, ProNatural Brands, and United Sources Sought, all of which germinated from Idea Boxx. A long-standing supporter of the University, Aab is a University trustee, a board member of the Medical Center, and served as cochair of the Medical Center’s $650 million campaign. His generous contributions to the University reflect his dedication to medical research, benefiting the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Golisano Children’s Hospital, and Strong Memorial Hospital. In 2007, the Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute was named in recognition of his leadership support and commitment to the institute’s mission.

Distinguished Alumnus Award

• Arthur Moss ’62M (Res) is the Bradford C. Berk, MD, PhD Distinguished Professor in Cardiology at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the founding director of the Heart Research Follow-Up Program, a nationally distinguished research group studying sudden cardiac death. Fascinated by the genetics of heart disease, he began studying long QT syndrome, a disease that makes the heart susceptible to fatal arrhythmias, in the 1960s. He helped launch the International Long QT Syndrome Registry, one of the first gene registries for any disease in the world, and one that paved the way for genetic testing and innovative treatments for the potentially fatal condition. He is also an expert on electrical disturbances of the heart, and led research that resulted in the widespread use of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator. He is a past recipient of the School of Medicine and Dentistry Gold Medal Award, the Hutchison Medal, and the Eastman Medal.

Humanitarian Award

• Mark Weinstein ’65, ’69M (MD) is a reconstructive plastic surgeon and the founder of Changing Children’s Lives, a nonprofit organization that serves children in developing countries who have congenital and traumatic deformities. The organization employs local doctors and medical professionals to improve their skills and expertise. Weinstein and his medical team, which has included more than 60 medical students and 50 residents from both Yale and Rochester, perform operations on week-long missions, averaging 100 surgical procedures per trip. To date, Changing Children’s Lives has operated on more than 1,000 patients in such countries as Brazil, Honduras, Colombia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, and Uganda. Weinstein is a member of the Friends of Rochester Athletics Board, the School of Medicine and Dentistry 35th and 40th Reunion Committees, the School of Medicine and Dentistry Alumni Council, and has been an admissions and career services volunteer. He and his wife, Karen, are the parents of Joshua and Ellyn, both of whom are Rochester graduates.

Wilder Award

• Jeffrey ’87, ’91M (MD) and Carolyn Palko Stone ’87 met in a freshman-year Spanish class, graduated with honors, and went on to marry at the Interfaith Chapel. Today they remain closely connected to Rochester as philanthropists and alumni volunteers. Jeffrey is an associate professor of radiology at the Mayo Clinic Florida, where he treats spine disease and performs minimally invasive spine therapies. He is also a fellow of the American College of Radiology, an honor bestowed on only 10 percent of radiologists. Carolyn has worked as a research analyst for several large utility companies and is an expert in competitive intelligence, data analysis, and market research. The Stones are members of the George Eastman Circle, the University’s annual leadership giving society. They have also established two endowed funds—one at the School of Arts & Sciences and one at the School of Medicine and Dentistry—to provide need-based scholarships for undergraduate and medical students.

School of Nursing

Dean’s Medal

• Madeline Hubbard Schmitt ’65N, ’70 (MA) is a nurse-sociologist and a national leader in advancing interprofessional collaborative practice and interprofessional education. She was a faculty member at the School of Nursing from 1972 until her retirement in 2005, at which time she held an endowed chair as professor of nursing and interprofessional education. As a Rochester faculty member, she held leadership posts in administration, teaching, and funded research. She was also coleader of an informal national interprofessional network, as well as creator and chair of the North American Division of the Journal of Interprofessional Care. She was one of two U.S. members of the WHO Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice, and in 2011, she chaired a national expert panel that produced Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice, a report that helped trigger a national transformation in health professions education. Her past awards include the School of Nursing Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Distinguished Alumna Award.

Distinguished Alumna Award

• Cynthia Connolly ’87N (MS) is an associate professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and one of four faculty directors of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice and Research. Her scholarly work has focused on the forces that have shaped children’s health care delivery and family policy in the United States. She’s the author of the award-winning book, Saving Sickly Children: The Tuberculosis Preventorium in American Life, 1909–1970. In 2013, she published the monograph Well-Child Care and the Commonwealth Fund’s Child Development and Preventive Care Program, which analyzed the evolution of well-child care in the United States. Her current research traces the development, marketing, and use of pharmaceutical products for children. Supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research grant and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, her forthcoming book, No Drug Left Behind? Children, Drug Therapy, and Pharmaceutical Policy in the United States 1933-1979, will be published by Rutgers University Press. Connolly was awarded the J. Worth Estes Prize from the American Association for the History of Medicine in 2014, and the University of Pennsylvania’s highest teaching award, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, in 2015.

Legacy Award

• John Schottmiller ’53 is the founder and former president of RM Consulting, a quality training business serving Fortune 500 clients in the United States and Canada. Prior to launching his firm, he had a 27-year career at Xerox where, as manager of business effectiveness and quality for one of its largest divisions, he introduced the concept of Total Quality Management. While he was launching RM Consulting, he studied Russian and went on to serve on the board of an American company that sold photographic products in Russia. He also worked with Linkages of Rochester, managing the sister city relationship with Veliky Novgorod, Russia, and volunteered for the State Department, assisting Russian businesses in the Ural Mountain region. John and his wife, Anne, are members of the George Eastman Circle. They also established an endowed scholarship at the School of Nursing in memory of their daughter, Julia Anne Schottmiller-Koestner ’84N, who was killed in 1990 during a visit in Prague.