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Randy D. Danielsen BS’78 has received the Eugene A. Stead Award of Achievement, the highest award given by the American Academy of Physician Assistants. The award honors lifetime achievement that has had a broad and significant impact on health care, including for patients and the profession itself.
Danielsen was recognized for distinguishing himself as a pioneering national and state physician assistant leader, clinician, educator, author, and editor of scholarly journals. Danielsen, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, has served on the academy’s board of directors and as chairman of the board of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. Besides his work as a physician assistant, Danielsen also was recognized for his accomplished career as an educator and editor.
According to the Physician Assistant History Society, Danielsen began his health care career as a medical corpsman in the U.S. Air Force in 1970. He served 28 years with the Air Force and the Army National Guard, including in the Gulf War, and retired in 1998 as a lieutenant colonel.
During that time, he also received his bachelor's degree at the University of Utah in health science in 1978 and a master's degree in physician assistant studies from the University of Nebraska, with an emphasis in internal medicine, in 1997. He went on to get a doctorate in interdisciplinary arts and education, with an emphasis in medical education, from the Union Institute & University in 2003.
His work as an educator began in 1995, teaching in Wichita State University's physician assistant program, and he went on to become associate director, academic coordinator, and eventual chair of the physician assistant program at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine Southwest Center, which later became A.T. Still University. He currently is dean of the Arizona School of Health Sciences and is also an adjunct associate professor for Nova Southeastern University's College of Health Care Sciences. In 2011, he published his first book,
The Preceptor's Handbook for Supervising Physician Assistants.
Danielsen was appointed by the governor of Arizona to serve on the Arizona Regulatory Board for Physician Assistants from 1986 to 1990 and again from 2001 to 2009, and he was the board's chairman from 2002 to 2004. From 1997 to 2009, Danielsen was part of the leadership of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. He chaired a number of committees and served as the chairman of the board in 2007. From 2010 to 2012, he led the NCCPA Foundation as its senior vice president.
In 2012, he was honored by the University of Utah School of Medicine's Division of Physician Assistant Studies with the "Patron of the Profession" award for "unwavering dedication and service to the physician assistant profession." He currently serves as physician assistant editor-in-chief for
Clinician Reviews, a peer-reviewed professional journal for both physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
Teresa Jordan BFA’02 and her new book,
The Year of Living Virtuously (Weekends Off) (Counterpoint Press, 2014), have been recognized with a "da Vinci Eye" honor, for superior cover artwork, from the Eric Hoffer Award program.
The book’s cover features one of Jordan’s hand-colored monotypes, “Chickens from the Dark Side.” The da Vinci Eye is part of the Hoffer Award program for books and short prose, which honors the memory of the American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing as well as the independent spirit of small publishers.
The Hoffer Awards are given in a variety of categories.
The da Vinci Eye prize, established in 2009, is given in honor of Leonardo da Vinci. Since its inception, the Eric Hoffer Book Award program has become one of the largest international awards programs for small, academic, and independent presses.
U alumni
Jeff Metcalf BS’74 MEd’77,
Claudia Sisemore MFA’76, and
Tony Smith BFA’62 MFA’64 are among five recipients of the 2015 Salt Lake City Mayor’s Artist Awards, presented by the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, and the Utah Arts Festival. The awards honor the contributions made by individuals and organizations to the cultural life of the Salt Lake City community. Cash awards of $500 will be presented to each of the award recipients at the annual Utah Arts Festival on June 22.
Metcalf will receive the Artist Award for Literary Arts for his contribution to arts in the community. Metcalf is a professor of English at the U and has received numerous awards, including the U’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the National Council of Teachers Outstanding Teaching Award, the Writers at Work Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Huntsman Award for Excellence in Education. His fiction and essays have been widely published and his play,
A Slight Discomfort, has been touring the United States and Europe for the past several years. Metcalf’s most recent book,
Requiem for the Living (University of Utah Press, 2014) has received rave reviews.
Sisemore is being recognized for her work in the visual arts. Sisemore received a master’s degree in painting and filmmaking at the U and has been a teacher of English, drama, creative writing, painting, and film production. She produced more than 200 educational films for the Utah State Office of Education over a 15-year span and received numerous awards for her work. For the past 35 years, she has produced films on a variety of subjects, but her primary interest is producing independent documentaries to record the histories of outstanding Utah artists. Represented by Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake City, Sisemore regularly exhibits her abstract paintings and also participates in statewide shows.
Smith is a professor emeritus of art at the U, where he has taught hundreds of students over a 30-year career, and he is also recognized for his work in visual arts. His work has been featured in
TIME magazine and as part of art collections across the country. Smith studied at the Arts Students’ League in the 1960s and has taught at universities and art institutes throughout the West. He served as a conceptual illustrator for special effects for the classic film
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).
Cynthia K.C. Meyer JD’87, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, has been appointed by Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter to the First Judicial District bench serving Kootenai County. Meyer replaces Benjamin R. Simpson, who is retiring. Her appointment is effective immediately.
“I believe Cynthia has the right mix of temperament, decisiveness, and personal integrity for the bench, and I am confident that she will approach her new duties with the same well-reasoned, thoughtful demeanor that exemplified her tenure as a member of the Idaho State Bar,” says Otter.
A member of the international legal honor society Phi Delta Phi, Meyer has practiced law in Utah and Idaho since 1987 and currently serves on the Idaho Volunteer Lawyers Program Policy Council. She received a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1982 from the College of Idaho and her juris doctorate in 1987 from the U’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
“It is a tremendous honor to be appointed first district judge by Governor Otter,” says Meyer. “I love this state and am grateful for the opportunity to serve the community where my husband Rick and I have chosen to raise our family.”
Meyer and her husband have two children.
Stephen Oliverson PhD’94 MPA’94 and
Leigh VandenAkker BS’75 have received 2015 Huntsman Teaching Awards. Established 23 years ago by Jon and Karen Huntsman, the awards recognize Utah’s most influential educators. From nominations, judges select two teachers and one administrator from each of three divisions—elementary, middle, and high school professionals—along with a dedicated volunteer, to receive the awards. A special education teacher receives the Mark H. Huntsman Award for Special Education in honor of the Huntsmans’ son who has disabilities. Each honoree receives a check for $10,000, with the stipulation that teachers spend the money on themselves, not on their schools and students.
Oliverson is principal at Provost Elementary in Provo. “No teacher has ever done more for a Title I school than Dr. Stephen Oliverson,” says Christine Elgaaen, parent and former PTA president. “He has proved many times that children from less affluent or educated households can be taught to engage in the same activities and habits that help the more privileged to succeed. In fact, Dr. Oliverson has used the diversity in his school as a strength to show that all students who enter there are equally capable of high achievement, and the only thing separating those who are the most successful from the least is extra confidence and self-discipline, which students develop very nicely at Provost.”
VandenAkker is a social studies teacher at East High in Salt Lake City. “Many of the students entering Leigh VandenAkker’s class are unsure of their academic abilities and have few plans for the future,” writes Julie Black, a parent and former PTA president. “By the end of the year, students report improved grade-point averages, some by as much as 76 percent. They learn to believe in themselves, have a voice in their education, and understand the rigor needed to accomplish their goals. Ms. V. is a master teacher, a true advocate, and an invaluable resource to East High and its student body.”
Veritas Medical, a medical innovation company founded by a team of U bioengineering and medical students, including Nate Rhodes BA'13 MS'14, Ahrash Poursaid BS'14, Martin de la Presa, James Allen BS’13, and Mitch Barneck BS'13 (pictured left to right), won $153,000 at the prestigious Rice University Business Plan Competition held this spring in Houston. Veritas took home a competition-best eight awards and finished in fourth place overall in the contest, which featured teams from top universities including Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Stanford.
Launched at the U’s 2012 Bench-2-Bedside competition, where results of research done in the laboratory are directly used to develop new ways to treat patients, Veritas Medical created and is continuing to develop its LIGHT LINE Catheter, which eliminates infection-causing bacteria using high-intensity light. Catheter-related infections are common in hospitals in the United States and throughout the world, and the students sought to find a way to eliminate the problem.
“When we first started, we had big plans to change the world,” says Rhodes, a recent bioengineering graduate and chief executive officer of Veritas Medical. “It started out as a learning activity, and we ended up loving the process. We knew we had a really great idea, but we had never done anything like this before, and we weren’t sure how far we would actually get.”
In the Rice competition, Veritas Medical nabbed the Mercury Fund Tech Transfer Investment Prize of $100,000, the NASA Earth/Space Human Health & Performance Innovation Cash Award of $20,000, the Health & Wellness Innovation Award of $15,000, and the Edward H. Molter Memorial Best Presentation Prize of $10,000. They also won $5,000 for taking fourth place overall and collected a number of smaller cash prizes. Veritas plans to use the money for research. The company is currently gearing up for its first animal trial, and the team hopes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve the LIGHT LINE Catheter in about 18 months.
To submit alumni news for consideration, email ann.floor@utah.edu. Learn about even more outstanding University of Utah alumni—from Pixar founder Ed Catmull to Kansas City Chiefs QB Alex Smith—here.