Awards and Recognition

The work public health professionals do to promote and improve individual and collective health often happens out of sight: setting safety standards; developing school nutrition programs; tracking diseases; vaccinating communities; fighting pollution; preventing gun violence; and advocating for laws to keep people safe.

When the system works, it is easy to take for granted. However, a public health emergency, like the COVID-19 pandemic, puts public health officials’ work on center stage. As Executive Director of the American Public Health Association (APHA), Dr. Georges Benjamin was a trusted voice at the height of the pandemic. He gave hundreds of interviews and calmly explained the virus to the American people and how to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Undoubtedly, his background as an emergency physician prepared him for the moment.

Born and raised in Chicago, Benjamin fell in love with emergency medicine at UIC while doing clinical rotations and helping underserved patients at teaching hospitals around the city. He says, “That foundational experience taught me to really listen to patients.”

Over the next decade, he took these lessons with him into the Army as a military physician. He rose to chief of emergency medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. After that, Benjamin served in leadership roles in emergency medicine, ambulatory care and community health until, in 1995, when he was appointed deputy secretary for public health services at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Four years later he became secretary of the department, overseeing a dramatic expansion and improvement of the state’s Medicaid program.

With each of these experiences, Benjamin witnessed health disparities throughout the country and “a fractionated system that creates real problems for patients.” The COVID-19 pandemic in particular shined a light on many of these health inequities, especially, as Benjamin notes, “around vaccine uptake, cost of care and access to not just care, but the right kind of care.”

Today, as director of the largest public health policy organization in the country, Benjamin advocates for the health of all Americans. He says, “Public health was founded on the principle of social justice as a basic right. Everyone should have the opportunity for good health.”

As a distinguished researcher, educator, scholar and advocate for evidence-based nursing practice, Eui Geum Oh is committed to enhancing patient care by empowering nurses. New research, technologies and science constantly change the field of nursing and its potential to impact individual’s lives — and Oh is dedicated to keeping nurses trained for the times.

During her doctoral studies at UIC’s College of Nursing in the mid- to late 1990s, Oh focused on improving the quality of life for patients with respiratory illnesses. She had access to emerging IBM and Microsoft technologies for data analysis and reference management and benefited from mentorship from renowned nurse scholars like Janet Larson, Carol Ferrans and Mi Ja Kim.

“They instilled in me the importance of leadership in research and administration and demonstrated how nurse researchers can significantly impact the health care industry,” says Oh.

After graduating in 1999, Oh moved to Korea, where she has transformed nursing science and education for two decades. As the inaugural chief of the Review Board at Korea’s National Research Foundation, Nursing Division, she made notable contributions to research and development. She published more than 160 papers in esteemed journals, secured more than $3 million in research grants from the Korean government and earned recognition as the Best Nurse Scientist from the Korean Academy of Nursing Science. And, she founded the Korean Center of JBI, bolstering evidence-based research and professional training for health care professionals.

These and many more achievements led to her current role as the Dean of the College of Nursing at Yonsei University, the number one ranked nursing program in Korea. At Yonsei, Oh mentored countless nursing students and developed an innovative nursing entrepreneurship curriculum, which received funding from Brain Korea 21, a government scholarship program that “aims to cultivate outstanding scholars who take the lead in responding to social changes.”

Oh says, “My passion project for the nursing profession is to advocate for entrepreneurial endeavors and to leverage cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data, to advance health care. Nurses play a crucial role in integrating these innovations to improve patient outcomes and to streamline health care delivery, and new ideas and technologies enhance patient care and elevate the nursing profession.”

Greg Cameron is the president and CEO of the Joffrey Ballet, but he is the first to admit he is not a dancer. But watching him engage a room is like watching a beautiful dance in its own right. “I realized early on that I didn’t have the creative energies to be an artist, but I’m good at making connections,” says Cameron.

For more than four decades, Cameron has worked to shine a spotlight on Chicago art and artists. He served in administrative and philanthropic roles with prominent organizations, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Art Institute of Chicago and WTTW-Channel 11. The Joffrey Ballet hired him as executive director in 2013, and he helped the once-struggling institution set box office records and re-establish itself as a world-renowned dance company.

Cameron’s love for art was always clear — as a young boy he organized theatrical productions in the garage and set up a mini-museum in the basement. However, his route to the Chicago art world was circuitous. He began his studies in special education before switching to German and Art History for his undergraduate degrees.

He then moved to Chicago and started taking classes at UIC where he fell in love with the campus, the courses and the school’s connections to the Chicago art world. He acquired a Master of Public Administration and interned at the Department of Cultural Affairs, which set the scene for his career as an arts leader. “I got this introduction to the breadth and depth of the cultural community in Chicago — from music to theater to the visual arts — and I found a space for me to support artists,” he says.

Over the years, Cameron dedicated himself to giving back to the institutions that impacted him. While at the MCA, he taught a UIC art history course that brought students to the museum every week to learn from curators, designers, facilities and fundraisers. He developed connections between Chicago Public Schools and the Joffrey’s training program, the Joffrey Academy of Dance, to engage the next generation of dancers. And he has served on various UIC leadership and advisory boards to strengthen the school’s role in the Chicago arts community.

“I want to give people an opportunity to be part of something that’s bigger than them — and that’s the arts,” he says.

Michael Hausknost beams as he talks about his late wife, Patricia, and her love for her alma mater. He met and married Patricia long after her time at UIC, but he says she “credited her ability to succeed in business and life with the education she received there.”

Patricia attended UIC’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the early 1970s. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, she commuted to what was then referred to as the Circle Campus, taking classes during the day and caring for her younger siblings in the evening. Michael says, “Her mother passed away when she was 14, and she took on maternal duties. UIC was important because she could transition to college while remaining close to her family.”

A motivated student, Patricia graduated in three years with a BA in Teaching of German. She planned to teach linguistics, but she needed a car and a job to afford one. She was hired at Northern Trust bank, and one car and a couple decades later, she had risen through the ranks to become an accomplished, sought-after leader in the banking industry.

Along the way, she passionately advocated for the advancement of women in business, mentoring many throughout her career. “Patricia dealt with a lot of cutthroat people in her industry, and she was tough and highly respected,” says Michael.

After moving to Southern California in 1998, Patricia found two true loves: her husband, Michael, and a new career as a financial planner. Both encouraged her to fulfill her deep-seated desire to teach.

She taught financial planning at UCLA, and in 2010, she joined UIC’s Board of Visitors, an advisory group of alumni who support the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She served until her passing in 2021 as a committed ambassador for UIC—recruiting, advising, fundraising and creating a scholarship for low-income students.

“She felt so strongly about supporting UIC because it offered her so much opportunity, and she wanted everybody to have that same opportunity,” says Michael, who will step into Patricia’s role as board chair. “Even though I’m not an alumnus, I didn’t hesitate to take her role because I know how much Patricia loved the school.”

We all have those unsung heroes in our lives whose impact is understated yet invaluable. They are the humble, behind-the-scenes helpers who provide much-needed advice, offer comfort, share their time and talents selflessly and make the world a better place for so many. Michael Barrows is one of these people — an under-the-radar role model whose mission is to serve others.

After graduating from UIC’s College of Dentistry in 1973, Barrows served in the United States Army Dental Corps at the end of the Vietnam War. UIC readied him for the rigor and challenges of practicing dentistry in the Army dental clinics and in field exercises at Fort Riley, Kansas, and later in Germany. He says, “My commanding officers noticed how excellently I was prepared from my dental school training, and they gave me more challenging assignments.”

Post Army, Barrows earned degrees in Endodontics and Dental Histology, both from UIC. He joined a group practice of specialists while also mentoring UIC dental students — first as a part-time instructor (1977–94) and then as a full-time assistant professor and undergraduate endodontic clinic director from 1994 until his retirement in 2013. Over those 35 years of teaching, Barrows made an impression on an untold number of UIC students. “I didn’t like to lecture, so I was very hands-on in my teaching. I think they appreciated that. I’m still friends with a lot of my former students, so that’s a good sign,” he says.

Even while giving back to his alma mater, Barrows couldn’t help but think of his time in the Armed Services and how he could help those who also served their country. Upon retiring, he says, “I vowed that I would do everything I can for the veterans.”

Over the last decade, he has volunteered at the Illinois Veterans Home Manteno by working with vets in the wood shop and transporting veterans; helping at the First Division Museum in Wheaton, IL; assisting veterans with benefits and arranging for fellow comrades to donate food, supplies and clothing to the veterans home as a service officer through the American Legion; and volunteering with Honor Flight Chicago, which flies veterans to Washington, DC, to visit the memorials built in tribute to their service.

This call to serve his community is at the core of who Barrows is. He believes it is an honor to help others, and he is a shining example of how UIC alumni can give back through their whole lives.

What surprised Erika Sánchez most about success at a young age? All of it — the National Book Award finalist, the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Fulbright scholarship, the New York Times bestseller list — but also none of it because one of her UIC professors once told her, “You’re Erika f-ing Sánchez.” This confidence builder stuck, helping her navigate the self-doubt that has always nagged at her.

As a child of Mexican immigrants and the first in her family to go to college, Sánchez felt immense pressure to succeed, a feeling that was often at odds with her dream of becoming a poet. She fell in love with poetry and writing in high school as a way to express herself. “I was a lonely kid,” she says. “Poetry became this vehicle where everything is possible.”

She pursued poetry at UIC, attending with the help of scholarships, grants and the money-saving option to commute from her home in Cicero, Illinois. She loved UIC’s diversity, its Chicago-ness and its scrappiness. “I’m a very independent person, and UIC helped me advocate for myself and get things done,” she says.

But as a first-generation Latina college student who wanted a career in writing, she felt she had “to excel in everything at all times.” She remembers, “Instead of enjoying the college experience, I was already living in the future.” That future involved a Fulbright scholarship in Madrid, Spain; an MFA in Creative Writing; her first published poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion; and her best-selling young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

Sánchez often writes about mental health and shares her own struggles with a relatable honesty and humor. Her memoir, Crying in the Bathroom, confronts the anxieties and traumas she experienced growing up. She admits, “I didn’t realize until recently when I started to look back upon my life that I was very tense all the time because I felt like I could not f– up…especially as a woman of color.”

Even now she feels that way. But with an irrepressible laugh, she says, “I have a novel being turned into a movie, I paid off all my loans and I feel like a badass.”

If a mother cannot afford child care, if a father can barely feed his family, if a person has no access to public transit, how can they show up for a doctor’s appointment or keep up with their health? Dr. Garth Walker focuses on these social determinants of health and ways to help people live healthier lives.

Walker’s commitment to health equity and passion for civic engagement took root when he was a medical student in UIC’s Urban Medicine Program (UMED). The collaborative program connects future physician leaders to community-based organizations to address health disparities through service learning and advocacy.

“Between UMED and my role in the student national medical association, I was able to line up partnerships across the city,” says Walker. “From increasing preventive health awareness in Black men through Project Brotherhood to providing care to underserved communities through North Lawndale Christian Health Center to setting up blood drives — we did something almost monthly to galvanize medical students and center the communities that need it most.”

After graduating, Walker quickly ascended to prominent practice and policy leadership roles. As a resident physician at University of Chicago’s Emergency Medicine department, he advocated for protocols to match high-risk individuals with resources to reduce gun violence recidivism. As deputy director of the Illinois Department of Public Health at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walker helped increase vaccination rates, advise vaccine operations and shape policies and initiatives around health inequities.

Then, in an opportunity of a lifetime, President Biden appointed him as a White House fellow and senior advisor within the Department of Health and Human Services. With other physicians, entrepreneurs, academics and artists, he focused on building a health care infrastructure that can better protect the United States’ most disadvantaged communities.

Today, Walker channels his drive toward health equity and social justice into his role as the senior medical director of value-based care for Rush Health in Chicago. By developing innovative reimbursement models, he is creating a health care system that considers people’s lived experiences.

“It is an impactful area,” says Walker. “Because you think about how people navigate their communities, and that data can support policy and initiatives to fill in gaps — if it’s a grocery store or transportation issue — and that can improve the care of a community overall.”