Scientist earns allied health distinction; leadership cohort graduates

A national scholastic honor society bestows an allied health education award to a Department of Psychiatry scientist, while 45 participants in UMMC's leadership program earn their diplomas.

Alpha Eta taps UMMC scientist for Holder Award

Mahajan

Gouri J. Mahajan, a scientist in the School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry, has been selected by the Alpha Eta Society, a national scholastic honor society for the allied health professions, to receive its 2016 Lee Holder Award for Excellence in Graduate Allied Health Education.

Mahajan will formally accept the award Oct. 19 at the annual Conference of the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions (ASAHP) in New Orleans.

Mahajan will receive a certificate, a $1,000 cash award and an additional $1,000 in travel costs to attend the conference.

In addition to her work as Centers for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) brain core manager, Mahajan is working on her Ph.D. in the School of Health Related Professions. Her dissertation is examining neurogenesis in the hippocampus of subjects with depression.

Mahajan also has been invited to join the Phi Kappa Phi honor society, the highest interdisciplinary honor society at the University of Mississippi.

Leadership program graduates second cohort

Forty-five graduates of the UMMC Leadership Program's Cohort 2 received their diplomas at an Aug. 25 ceremony in the Norman C. Nelson Student Union.

Graduates include, front row from left, Sandra Provis, Lasonia Jones, Dashunda Bunton, Kimberly Edwards, Patrice Donald, Ricardo Thomas, Gwen Overton and Jessica Green Overby; second row from left, Cari Fowler, Kenitra Miggins, Lesley Colwell, Stacy Brookerd, Joyce Shelby, Debbie Gibbons, Casonja Thompson and Russ Hawkins; third row from left, Barbara Inman, Hartman Holliman, Vicky Tygart, Yulonda Hutton, Angela Brown and Paula Shelton; fourth row from left, Elizabeth Hinton, Felice Gray, Martin Bragg, Karla Velez, Carla Holifield, Tammy Falls-Puryear and Phaedra Hailey; and back row from left, Julie Green, Steve Waite, Stephen Houck, Rebecca Benson, Patrick Parker, Caroline Griffin and Casey Bridges. Graduates not pictured include Josephine Alston, William F. Brown, Kristin Dowdy, Margaret Kovar, Delia Y. Owens, Lesley Utz, Margaret Prine, Jessica A. Robertson, Cheryl Stingily and John C. Pace.

Program participants explore workplace conflict management and resolution, economics of health care, change management through leadership and systems thinking, and values-based leadership.

For more information or to nominate an employee for the program, email Paula Shelton at pshelton@umc.edu.