Meet the 2023 Winner: Valerie G. Press, MD, MPH, ATSF
Valerie Press is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, Executive Medical Director Specialty Value Based Care, and Medical Director of the Care Transitions Clinic at the University of Chicago. Dr. Press received her medical degree and Master of Public Health in health management and policy at the University of Michigan. She completed her internal medicine and pediatrics residency training and hospitalist scholars research fellowship training at the University of Chicago. She has been a member of the ATS since 2008 and a member of the Behavioral Science Assembly since 2009. She has previously served the assembly as a member of the Planning Committee (2018 to 2002), Program Committee (2019 to present) which she previously chaired (2021-2022), and is the upcoming Chair Elect for the BSHSR Assembly. She was previously a recipient of the ATS BSHSR Early Career Achievement award in 2019.
Dr. Press' research is focused on developing, testing, and implementing patient and system level interventions to improve the quality and value of care for patients with chronic lung disease across care transition settings. She currently serves as principal investigator for two R01s (National Institutes of Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). Both projects are focused on improving care for patients with COPD by utilizing tailored patient and system centered interventions to reduce revisits to the emergency department and/or hospital post-hospitalization for COPD. She was recently awarded an NIH NHLBI K24 Mentoring Award to support trainees and junior faculty on their lung-related patient oriented research.
Description:
The award will be given to a mid-career individual who has made outstanding scientific and scholarly contributions relevant to behavioral and social sciences, clinical epidemiology, statistics, health services research, health economics, comparative clinical efficacy and effectiveness research, patient-centered outcomes research, performance measurement, quality improvement, or implementation science. This award is to recognize individuals who have applied these methodologies to lung diseases, critical illness, or sleep disorders during their career, and who have made significant contributions to the BSHSR Assembly and the ATS as a whole. The award committee encourages nominations from groups who are under-represented in medicine. Awardees will be presented with a framed certificate at the ATS International conference.
Criteria:
- Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or an equivalent rank in a non-academic institution
- 10-20 years from completing all post-doctoral or clinical training, excluding time off for personal circumstances
- Current BSHSR member (primary or secondary membership)
- Has not previously received a Mid Career Achievement award from any ATS assembly
- The submission package must include the candidate’s updated curriculum vitae and a nomination letter from an assembly member addressing the candidate’s achievements within the scored award domains.
Scoring:
Applicants are scored on 6 criteria using a 1-5 rating system across the following categories; summed scores provide an overall score:
- Scientific and scholarly contributions/products
- Teaching/mentoring/educational contributions
- Participation in BSHSR Assembly activities (administrative, committees, workshops, etc.)
- Participation in other ATS activities (administrative, committees, workshops, etc.)
- Other considerations from recommendations including relevant extenuating circumstances
- Overall impact/impression of the dossier submitted for award application
