VCU news

Melis Hafez, Ph.D., professor, Department of History, College of Humanities and Sciences

The American Research Institute in Turkey has awarded Hafez a 12-month residential fellowship through the National Endowment for the Humanities. The fellowship includes a stipend of $50,400 that will support Hafez’s individual research and monograph.

The competitive residential program offers one to three fellowships for scholars of humanities working on Turkey each term ranging from four months to a year and a stipend from $16,800 to $50,400.

Founded in 1964, the research institute comprises 48 North American universities and museums working to promote advanced humanities and social sciences research in Turkey.

Margaret M. Grimes, M.D., professor and vice chair, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine  

Grimes has been elected to the presidency of the American Board of Pathology, which is the certifying board for pathologists. An active member of the teaching faculty at the School of Medicine, Grimes has received numerous teaching awards for her respiratory and cardiovascular courses and in 2012 she was selected to receive the Enrique Gerszten Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, which is the highest teaching award conferred by the School of Medicine. The mission of the ABP is to promote the health of the public and advance the practice and science of pathology by establishing voluntary certification standards and to assess the qualifications for physicians seeking to practice the specialty of pathology.

Anton Kuzel, M.D., chair and professor, Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, School of Medicine

This month, Kuzel assumed the presidency of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine. He will give his first address as president on Feb. 19 during the national organization’s annual winter meeting in Savannah, Georgia. Kuzel has been in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health for more than 30 years. The ADFM is the organization of departments of family medicine and is devoted to transforming care, education and research to promote health equity and improve the health of the nation.  

Marcel Cornis-Pope, Ph.D., professor and director of Ph.D. program, Department of English, College of Humanities and Sciences

A professor of new media and theory, Cornis-Pope’s 14th publication, “New Literary Hybrids in the Age of Multimedia Expression: Crossing Borders, Crossing Genres,” was recently released under John Benjamins Publishing Co.

The book is the fifth volume in the "Histories of Literatures in European Languages" series. His volume expands on how now, more than ever, people are able to interact through reading and writing via hypertextual, multimedia and virtual reality technologies, and argues that if these technologies reinforce stagnant and outdated reading and writing habits then the technology will be put to waste.

Paul Fisher, Ph.D., professor and chair, Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, and Steven Grant, M.D., professor, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine

Fisher and Grant were appointed to the editorial board of the Cancer Research Journal, reported to be the most frequently cited cancer journal in the world. They will advise the editor-in-chief on the direction of the journal, as well as review manuscripts.

Fisher is the director of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine and the Thelma Newmeyer Corman Chair in Cancer Research at VCU Massey Cancer Center. Grant is Shirley Carter Olsson and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Cancer Research, associate director for translational research and program co-leader of Developmental Therapeutics at VCU Massey Cancer Center.