The Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) is proud to announce its 2022 International Conference on Eating Disorders (ICED) awardees. Each year, the AED honors those who have made significant contributions to the treatment, scientific understanding, and awareness of eating disorders globally. The honorees for 2022 include:
Lifetime Achievement
Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED
For pioneering lifetime contributions to the AED and to the field of eating disorders in the areas of treatment, research, education, and administration.
Dr. Bulik leads research teams at the University of North Carolina, Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (CEED) and the Karolinska Institutet, Centre for Eating Disorders Innovation that are dedicated to deepening our understanding of the underlying biology and genetics of eating disorders and to advancing the evidence base for the treatment of these illnesses. As founder and co-chair of the Eating Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, she leads a global effort to identify actionable genomic variation in eating disorders. She is also the principal investigator of the global Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Together with Ian Carroll, PhD, she conducts population-level and intensive longitudinal clinical investigations of the intestinal microbiota in people with eating disorders. For the past decade, with Donald Baucom, PhD, and Jennifer Kirby, PhD, she has developed and disseminated a suite of couples-based interventions for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Dr. Bulik also serves as senior faculty on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) funded National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders – the U.S. national authoritative source for information and training in eating disorders. She is dedicated to mentorship of junior investigators, especially women in fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and is passionate about translating science for the public.
Award in Clinical, Administrative, or Education Service
Eva Trujillo, FAED, CEDS, FAAP, FIADEP
In recognition of contributions to the clinical care and well-being of individuals with eating disorders through clinical contributions to the field.
Dr. Trujillo is the medical director of the Comenzar de Nuevo Eating Disorders Center, an inpatient and residential treatment center and is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Nutrition at Tec Salud, Medical School in Monterrey, Mexico. She is dedicated to raising awareness about eating disorders and promoting effective prevention and treatment programs to Mexico, Central America, and South America. She demonstrates a passion to the eating disorders field through her leadership in clinical practice and administration. Dr. Trujillo is actively involved in several associations of pediatrics, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and obesity. She is a Fellow of the AED and the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IADEP); an International Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics; a Certified Eating Disorders Specialist (CEDS) with the IADEP; and former president of the AED, the International Chapter of the IADEP, the AED Hispano Latino American Chapter, and the Mexican Association of Eating Disorders Professionals. Dr. Trujillo has also been a trailblazer in planning the 2022 ICED, originally to be held in Mexico.
Leadership Award in Research
Nadia Micali, MD, PhD, FAED
In recognition of an internationally respected body of research yielding new knowledge about eating disorders and measurably advancing the field.
Dr. Micali is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and Head of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division at the Geneva University Hospital. She has authored more than 160 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has delivered more than 50 lectures across the world. Her research focuses on understanding biological and intergenerational risks associated with eating disorders and the epidemiology of eating disorders and neurobiological risk in adolescent girls. Dr. Micali has been involved in the development of a Master’s degree at the University College London, the only degree of its kind in the world. She has also worked on research projects exploring the links between personality and CAT in mothers. In addition, Dr. Micali is a Fellow of the AED and serves on the executive board on the Eating Disorders Research Society (EDRS), for which she was president in 2015.
Global Impact Award
Frances Haugen
Frances Haugen, now known as “the Facebook whistleblower,” is the former Facebook product manager who acted with tremendous bravery to orchestrate the leak of thousands of pages of internal company documents in 2021 to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. lawmakers, and federal regulators. Facebook has long been scrutinized for its exploitative, deceptive, and manipulative business practices that may promote eating disorders among vulnerable users, but the vast trove of evidence that Haugen made public exposed the depth and breadth of the harm caused by Facebook’s business practices and laid bare the disturbing truth that Facebook leadership was well aware of the platform’s impacts. While there have been many investigative reports and critical former employees covered in the news in past years, none have matched the volume and revelatory power of the internal documents that Haugen delivered. None has so effectively and powerfully centered the story of Facebook’s and Instagram’s destructive impact on the mental health of young people, particularly for body image and eating disorders risk of adolescent girls, achieving what arguably has been the most serious and sustained international scrutiny from lawmakers and media. . Haugen achieved this through her eloquent and persistent framing of youth mental health and eating disorders risk as societal priorities throughout hours of U.S. Senate hearing testimony and countless media interviews. Her insistence that these issues be taken seriously elevated them to a level never before achieved in U.S. and international discourse among government leaders and journalists. No one in 2021 or in recent years has had a more profound impact on bringing recognition of the seriousness of eating disorders to the world stage.
In an apt example of her brilliant eloquence keeping the harm caused to young people in laser focus, when she was asked to comment on the coincidental five-hour blackout of Facebook on the Internet worldwide during the U.S. Senate hearings in early October 2021, Haugen remarked: “Yesterday we saw Facebook taken off the internet. I don’t know why it went down, but I know that for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”
ABOUT
The Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) is an international professional association committed to leadership in eating disorders research, education, treatment, and prevention. The goal of the AED is to provide global access to knowledge, research, and best treatment practice for eating disorders. For additional information, please contact AED Operations Director Erin Quinn at equinn@aedweb.org and visit the AED website at www.aedweb.org.
