UCSF Academic Senate Recognizes Four Distinguished Faculty

The UCSF Academic Senate has announced this year’s recipients of the Distinction in Teaching and the Distinction in Mentoring Awards.

Recipients of the Academic Senate Distinction in Teaching Awards and the Distinction in Mentoring Awards will be honored by UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, at the annual Founders Day Banquet on Tuesday, April 26. The UCSF community can congratulate the recipients at the Academic Senate's Distinguished Faculty Awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 6 at 3:30 p.m. in Cole Hall on the UCSF Parnassus campus.

The 2011 Academic Senate Distinction in Teaching Award is given to two faculty members, honoring one individual who has worked at UCSF for five years or fewer, and the other a faculty member at UCSF for more than five years. The 2011 Academic Senate Distinction in Mentoring Award also recognizes two faculty members, one at the associate rank and the other at the rank of full professor.

The 2011 Academic Senate Distinction in Teaching Award winners are:

• Kenny Banh, MD, assistant clinical professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine.
• Timothy Berger, MD, professor of clinical dermatology, Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine.

The 2011 Academic Senate Distinction In Mentoring Award winners are:

• Mallory O. Johnson, PhD, associate professor in residence, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine.
• Jeanette Brown, MD, professor in residence, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, School of Medicine.

To select each year’s recipients, the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Personnel designates a selection committee comprised of faculty and student representatives from all four professional schools at UCSF. The Distinction in Mentoring Award Selection Committee is appointed by the Academic Senate Committee on Committees.

2011 Distinction in Teaching Award Recipients

Kenny Banh

Kenny Banh

An emergency physician at UCSF Fresno, Banh enjoys working at the only level one trauma center between Los Angeles and San Francisco. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Banh earned his medical degree at Drexel University. He completed residency at UCSF Fresno during which he was awarded Resident Medical Student Educator of the Year, Academic Research Associates’ Outstanding Faculty in Emergency Medicine and the Council of Emergency Medicine Directors Faculty Development Scholarship.

Banh’s research specialties include trauma evaluation and critical care as well as evaluation and feedback. His interests center around medical education with particular interest in medical students. He is the medical student clerkship director in emergency medicine and the co-director of undergraduate medical education at UCSF Fresno. He also co-directs the longitudinal integrated Fresno experience curriculum for third-year medical students.

Timothy Berger

Timothy Berger

Berger credits his exposure to outstanding teachers throughout his whole educational experience with shaping his own work as a teacher today. In second grade, Berger was sent to a school which at that time was considered experimental, with only 20 students in his class and assignments individualized on a daily basis.

Similar close interactions with motivated and professional teachers were repeated during his high school and college years. At Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Berger was exposed to an educational system and philosophy much like UCSF: outstanding clinicians and scientists not only pass on knowledge, but equally importantly convey the wonder and joy of exploration, discovery and teaching.

While Berger was completing his residency training at a UCSF-affiliated program at Letterman Army Medical Center, he worked with UCSF dermatologists who were loved and respected by their patients and housestaff. They were recognized for their command of the knowledge and the joy with which they shared it.

Throughout Berger's own career, he has tried to emulate that example, and share the same joy with his students. "I view my primary job as two things," he said. "First to be the best role model I can be. Second, to engage the learner in the educational opportunity each patient encounter provides — the opportunity for learning, teaching, and discovery."

2011 Distinction In Mentoring Award Recipients

Mallory O. Johnson

Mallory O. Johnson

Johnson is associate professor in residence in the Department of Medicine in the Division of Prevention Science. He came to UCSF in 1997 for a fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry and joined the faculty in the Department of Medicine in 2003. Johnson earned his PhD in clinical medical psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has developed a program of clinical research centered on multidisciplinary approaches to understanding and optimizing patient engagement and empowerment in health care, primary in the context of HIV disease.

He has been awarded multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, including those that support his mentoring of early career investigators. His mentoring includes students, fellows and faculty, and spans across the UCSF schools of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy as well as investigators outside of UCSF. 

Jeanette Brown

Jeanette Brown

Brown has been a UCSF faculty in the department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences since 1986, with joint appointments in the departments of urology and epidemiology and biostatistics. 

Brown is an internationally recognized urogynecology clinician and leader in clinical research on lower urinary tract function in women. She has a strong federally and privately funded research program, publishes frequently in peer-reviewed journals, and serves as an advisor to the NIH. Reflecting her clinical and research career, Brown’s teaching activities are focused in mentoring and clinical research training for mid-level & junior faculty, fellows, residents, and students.

As director of the UCSF CTSI Comprehensive Mentoring Program, Brown leads the very successful Mentor Development Program and initiated the Junior Faculty Mentoring Program to help ensure that all young clinical and translational investigators at UCSF receive exceptional mentoring.

Recently Brown began her role as director of the UCSF Women's Health Clinical Research Center where she leads four key activities: interdisciplinary research programs; junior faculty training in clinical research; fellowship training in clinical research methods and clinical research studies. The WHCRC provides the structure for multidisciplinary groups to share pre- and post-award services, data management, statistical support, core laboratories, and staff training.