Gwenesta B. Melton, MD, wears many hats as a rheumatologist, teacher and champion for advocacy and collaboration. She has been involved with the ASC for more than a decade.

Gretchen Henkel is an award-winning health and medical journalist based in California. She reports on clinical and outcomes research and practice management issues, as well as patient-centered and culturally competent care for various specialties, including hospital medicine, rheumatology, oncology, otolaryngology and long-term care. As an editorial consultant for the SAMHSA-funded National Child Traumatic Stress Network, she develops content for toolkits on assessment and treatment of childhood abuse and trauma, and is the managing editor of the NCTSN quarterly newsletter, IMPACT.
Gwenesta B. Melton, MD, wears many hats as a rheumatologist, teacher and champion for advocacy and collaboration. She has been involved with the ASC for more than a decade.
In early December, Sharad Lakhanpal, MBBS, MD, a rheumatologist at Rheumatology Associates in Dallas and past president of the ACR, traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the 2023 Congress of the Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology (APLAR). There he was named an APLAR Master. The award is presented to someone not from APLAR,…
Throughout her medical training, Noelle A. Rolle, MBBS, encountered many patients struggling with both rheumatic disease and issues of health equity and access to care. This drew her to rheumatology and, now, to lead the ACR’s Collaborative Initiatives Committee.
Liana Fraenkel, MD, MPH, credits much of her own career success to support from the Foundation, and she is eager to advance its mission during her presidency.
PANLAR Names Eric L. Matteson, MD, a 2023 Master Throughout his career at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., Eric L. Matteson, MD, currently professor of rheumatology, emeritus, actively engaged with his rheumatology colleagues in Latin America. He participated in conferences, worked on South American publications and brought rheumatology fellows to the Mayo Clinic for training….
Arthritis Foundation Establishes Dr. Herbert S.B. Baraf Award for Excellence in Arthritis Care In October 2022 at its annual Commitment to a Cure Gala, the metropolitan Washington, D.C., chapter of the Arthritis Foundation presented its medical honoree, Herbert S.B. Baraf, MD, FACP, MACR, with the inaugural eponymous Dr. Herbert S.B. Baraf Award for Excellence in…
In January, Cecilia Pilar Chung, MD, MPH, began her new appointment as director of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Miami. Previously, Dr. Chung was an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., for more than 10 years. At Vanderbilt, Dr. Chung built a strong research portfolio, focusing on the comparative…
Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Receives the 2022 Lupus Insight Prize In June 2022, the Lupus Research Alliance (LRA) awarded its Lupus Insight Prize to Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, for her discovery of the link between endogenous retroviruses and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Dr. Iwasaki, who is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and a professor of dermatology,…
Lupus Research Alliance Inaugurates Diversity Awards The Lupus Research Alliance (LRA) inaugurated two new award mechanisms this past summer with the goal of alleviating the racial disparities prevalent in both autoimmune diseases and the biomedical research community. Three notable early career scientists from under-represented groups received the Diversity in Lupus Research Career Development Awards, and…
The new chair of the ACR’s Government Affairs Committee, Dr. Downey says physicians play a vital role in helping policymakers understand how policies and laws affect patients and the practice of rheumatology.