Joanna Buckles, bachelor’s in clinical and community dietetics ’82, received the Gilchrist County (Florida) Chamber of Commerce J. Min Ayers Lifetime Achievement Award. She was recognized for her community impact and leadership of Ayers Health & Rehabilitation Center in Trenton.
Matthew Hall, M.D., master’s in public health ’16, received the 2021 Heroes of Military Medicine Award from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. A lieutenant commander (doctor), he is the preventive medicine action officer at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, or BUMED, and also serves as a public health emergency officer for BUMED and Naval Installations Command.
Alyse Hausman, doctorate in physical therapy ’21, received the American Physical Therapy Association’s Mary McMillan Scholarship Award, which recognizes students who exhibit superior scholastic ability and potential for future professional contribution.
Michael D. Justiss, doctorate in rehabilitation science ’05, is the chair of the department of occupational therapy at Jacksonville University and the founding director of the university’s recently-accredited Doctor of Occupational Therapy program. The program graduated their inaugural cohort in May 2021.
Vicki Osborne, doctorate in epidemiology ’18, has been named an associate editor for the journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety. She is a principal research fellow at the Drug Safety Research Unit in Southampton, UK.
Joseph Sentef, M.D., master’s in public health ’12, and Michael von Fricken, master’s in public health ’11 and doctorate in public health ’14, were both inducted into Beta Upsilon, the UF chapter of the public health honor society Delta Omega. Sentef is the chief medical officer at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Administration. Von Fricken is an assistant professor of epidemiology in the department of global and community health at George Mason University.
Dania Lopez Ramirez, bachelor’s in communication disorders ’91, was appointed to the Florida Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology by Governor Ron DeSantis. A licensed speech-language pathologist, she is the owner and director of the Miami Center for Speech-Language Pathology.
Heather Simpson, master’s in occupational therapy ’09, along with UF Health colleagues Dr. Irene Malaty and Dr. Ashley Rawls, have been awarded a Parkinson’s Foundation grant to fund Parkinson’s disease outreach to the African American community in Alachua County.
