Pediatric research society honors Vanderbilt’s Vermund
Sten Vermund, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, is the recipient of the 2012 Douglas K. Richardson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research.
The award, named for the late Douglas Richardson, M.D., a renowned Harvard neonatologist, recognizes Vermund’s “substantive contributions to pediatric health care and health services research.”
It will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting this spring in Boston.
Sten Vermund, M.D., Ph.D.
Vermund is known for leading international HIV treatment and prevention projects in Zambia, Mozambique, Nigeria and other countries. Among other successes, these projects have brought to scale the prevention of AIDS virus transmission from mothers to their infants.
He also has spearheaded efforts to increase childhood immunization rates and to ease the burden of tropical and childhood diseases.
“It is an honor to be recognized in the same breath as Dr. Richardson and prior awardees,” said Vermund, the Amos Christie Chair in Global Health and professor of Pediatrics, Preventive Medicine, Medicine and Obstetrics & Gynecology.
“I think this is a compliment to our large teams in Africa that have actually accomplished wonders in program expansion,” he said. “It was a surprise to see implementation science in the global pediatrics arena so recognized.”
Vermund earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a master’s degree in tropical public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and his Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University.
Before coming to Vanderbilt in 2005, he served as chief of the vaccine trials and epidemiology branch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ AIDS Division, and as chairman of Epidemiology and director of the Sparkman Center for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Vermund is principal investigator of the international HIV Prevention Trials Network, and of the National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Support Center at Vanderbilt, which supports the training of clinical researchers in developing countries.