Award winners (l to r) Paul Ridker, Saul Wilson, Jr., and Mauricio Hernandez-Avila

Hernandez-Avila is the director general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, reporting to the country's Minister of Health. In his work, Hernandez-Avila stresses health economic development, transparent democratic processes, and environmental sustainability as a framework for public.

Ridker is the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at HMS. He also directs the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research brings together classical tools of large-scale, population-based epidemiology with genetic and molecular techniques to improve the prevention of thrombotic occlusions, or blood clots. In 2003, his work on inflammation and a substance called C-reactive protein (CRP) led to the first set of federal guidelines advocating CRP evaluation to detect heart disease.

Wilson is a professor of epidemiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health at Tuskegee University. He is a former assistant deputy administrator in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is a pioneer in livestock and poultry disease control programs. He has profoundly influenced the direction of Veterinary Public Health practice, policy, and education in the 21st century. He was a lead contributor to the Harvard-Tuskegee Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Risk Assessment, a report that continues to be used by the federal government as a basis for regulatory policymaking regarding mad cow disease.

J. Jacques Carter, MPH '83, president-elect of the HSPH Alumni Council and chair of the Alumni Award of Merit committee, introduced each winner, and Dean Barry Bloom conferred award certificates describing the recipients' accomplishments.

Prior to the awards, Eleanor Shore, AB '51, MD '55, MPH '77, delivered a keynote speech on the changing role of women at HMS and its relevance to HSPH. Shore is a former dean for faculty affairs at HMS. A program at the medical school is named after her. The Eleanor and Miles Shore 50th Anniversary Program for Scholars in Medicine has provided more than $7 million in support of junior faculty who are following academic careers while carrying heavy personal or family responsibilities.