Dr. Stamatos is also actively involved in the ACR as an active volunteer throughout the College and is a past president of the ARP. She currently serves on the Workforce Solutions Committee with a goal of increasing access for patients living with rheumatic disease.
Throughout her career, Dr. Stamatos has made significant contributions to the care and education of critically ill and rheumatology patients and their families while serving in the Army Nurse Corps, Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C., Hackensack University Medical Center, N.J., and several rheumatology private practices, and over the past ten years, in Northwell Health’s Division of Rheumatology. Additionally, Dr. Stamatos has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, Md., Stony Brook University School of Nursing, New York, and currently Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies, Hempstead, N.Y.
Dr. Stamatos has published and lectured extensively in the area of critical care and rheumatology nursing for the past 30 years.
ARP Merit Awards
ARP Master Award
The ARP’s highest honor—the Master Award—went to Leigh F. Callahan, PhD, MARP, for her outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology for more than nearly 35 years.
“I have been a member of ARP for 40 years and I am honored to receive this prestigious award,” says Dr. Callahan. “The ARP has been a significant part of my entire professional life.”
The Mary Link Briggs Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and professor in the Department of Orthopedics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Dr. Callahan is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology in UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is associate director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center (TARC) and also the director of the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance (OAAA), a coalition of more than 150 organizations committed to elevating osteoarthritis as a national health priority. Dr. Callahan holds an undergraduate degree from UNC, and a PhD from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
Dr. Callahan has more than 35 years of experience in arthritis and health outcomes research, and experience in public health as a former arthritis epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her specific areas of expertise are in four major areas: 1) outcomes and epidemiological research; 2) establishing collaborations in communities across North Carolina and the nation; 3) leadership roles in professional and nonprofit arthritis organizations; and 4) setting arthritis public health agendas.
