Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine honors BU doc

(Boston)–Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, FACC, FAHA, Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Diversity in the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) and assistant Provost for Faculty Development at Boston University Medical Campus, will receive the 2020 Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.

The award is presented to an individual who has effectively improved diversity within a medical school or community teaching hospital or who has worked to ensure patients of all races and ethnicities receive the highest quality of care.

According to David L. Coleman, MD, the John Wade Professor & Chair Department of Medicine at BUSM, Dr. Benjamin has had an extraordinary impact in promoting ethnic, racial and gender diversity within BUSM and BMC, as well as on the national level. “Through her world-class research program in cardiovascular epidemiology, remarkable success in program development, and prodigious mentoring activities, she has very positively influenced the careers of faculty from very diverse backgrounds including individuals working to identify and mitigate health disparities,” said Coleman, who also is Physician-in-Chief at BMC.

Benjamin, who also is a professor of medicine in the section of cardiovascular medicine at BUSM, professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health and an investigator at the Framingham Heart Study, is one of the most highly cited researchers in clinical medicine with more than 600 publications and a continuous record of substantial National Institutes of Health grant support. Her expertise in the genetic epidemiology of atrial fibrillation has helped elucidate the risk factors and mechanisms that underlie the development of the abnormal heart rhythm. She is a cardiologist at BMC.

In addition to her research, Benjamin is known for an exemplary devotion to teaching and mentoring. Cultivating the next generation, she has guided numerous young investigators and faculty members on research projects and has been a mentor for more than 50 individuals, most of whom have been highly successful in academic health sciences.

She has been recognized with the American Heart Association’s (AHA) 2016 Gold Heart Award and the AHA’s 2015 Paul Dudley White Award, the AHA’s Functional Genomics and Translational Biology Council Mentoring Award in 2013, the 2012 AHA’s Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award and the Boston University Department of Medicine’s Excellence in Research Mentoring Award in 2011.

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