Felicia Stewart
Felicia H. Stewart, adjunct professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, has been named winner of the 2005 Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg Award for excellence in writing and editing in the population sciences.
Stewart was co-director of the Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy at UCSF before she retired in 2004.
The award was presented at a reception at the Population Council in New York in June.
Created by Norberg's colleagues, friends, and family, the award commemorates Nordberg, who played a leading role in information dissemination on international population issues over three decades as editor, writer, and director of publications.
Given every two years, the award recognizes one of the following achievements: writing on population that combines exceptional scholarship with appeal to a broad readership or a record of editing technical material on population to make it accessible to varied audiences.
A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Stewart received her MD from Harvard University Medical School. She is a recipient of numerous honors, including the Carl S. Schult Award from the American Public Health Association, the Irvin M. Cushner Lectureship presented by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, and the Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Stewart has written a number of groundbreaking and influential books in the reproductive health field. As the lead author of "My Body, My Health: The Concerned Women's Guide to Gynecology," published in 1979, she helped break the doctor-patient barrier to enable women to become informed consumers and assert their rights to knowledge and decision making about their reproductive health. A revised edition, titled "Understanding Your Body," appeared in 1988. Both editions were Book of the Month Club selections. Stewart served as an author and editor of ten successive editions of "Contraceptive Technology," which is unique as a textbook in emphasizing the comfort, care, and understanding that guide service delivery.
With the publication in 1995 of "Emergency Contraception: The Nation's
Best-Kept Secret," Stewart and her colleagues helped to legitimize the use of Emergency Contraception. As president of the Association of Reproductive Professional in 2003-04, Stewart wrote a series of editorials that express her vision of the role of sexual and reproductive health and the rights of women in contributing to global health and welfare.
Stewart writes about both the science and the values of the population field. Without sacrificing rigor, she makes scientific material accessible to nonprofessionals. And as an activist she is uniquely sensitive to the social responsibility of scientists and the need for moral clarity in a field often driven by political factions.
