Distributed May 9, 2003
For Immediate Release

News Service Contact: Scott Turner



The 235th Commencement

Seth Berkley, M.D., to speak at Medical School Convocation

Seth Berkley, M.D., founder and president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, will speak at the Brown Medical School Commencement Convocation Monday, May 26, 2003, in the First Unitarian Church of Providence. Medical graduates will also hear talks by Angela Anderson, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, and Giridhar Mallya, a member of the graduating class. The convocation will begin at 8:45 a.m.


PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Seth Berkley, M.D., founder and president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) will present an address titled “Physician as Activist” during the Brown Medical School Commencement Convocation, Monday, May 26, 2003, in the First Unitarian Church of Providence, corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets. The two-hour convocation will begin at 8:45 a.m.

Medical graduates will also hear addresses from Angela Anderson, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, and Giridhar Mallya, a member of the graduating class. During the convocation, the graduating class will present the Medical School Senior Citation to Colin Harrington, M.D., clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior.

Berkley

Physicians as activists
Seth Berkley, an alumnus of Brown’s undergraduate College and Medical School, is founder and president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, credited with accelerating funding and research twoard a preventive AIDS vaccine.

Berkley is credited with speeding up funding for and development of preventive AIDS vaccines, particularly to fight strains of the disease found in non-industrialized nations. An international health specialist and epidemiologist, Berkley is also an adjunct professor of public health at Columbia University and an adjunct associate professor of medicine at Brown. In June 2001, Berkley was featured on the cover of Newsweek for the 20th anniversary of the discovery of HIV/AIDS.

Prior to founding IAVI, Berkley was associate director of the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation. Previously he worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Carter Center, assigned as an epidemiologist to the Ministry of Health in Uganda.

The author of more than 85 publications, Berkley has written extensively on infectious disease. He helped write the World Bank’s 1993 World Development Report on Health. Berkley earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Brown and trained in internal medicine at Harvard.

Angela Anderson, M.D.

Anderson will deliver the faculty address. Her talk is titled “Lessons I Learned from a Salamander.” In nominating Anderson, medical students called her an “outstanding teacher,” and a “role model as a person and physician.” In 1997, students chose Anderson to serve as graduation marshal. She received a faculty-teaching award in emergency medicine in 1999. Based at Rhode Island Hospital, Anderson is an associate professor of pediatrics. She specializes in emergency medicine and toxicology.

Giridhar Mallya, M.D. ’03

Mallya’s talk is titled “Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate.” He received his undergraduate education in molecular and cellular biology at Brown. Among his activities, Mallya served as student leader and volunteer at the Rhode Island Free Clinic; co-founded and helped run the Patient Advocacy Coordinating Council; and served as co-director of the Community Health Advocacy Program. A former teaching assistant, academic advisor and resident counselor, Mallya spent a summer providing medical care in Bolivia and a second summer as an exchange medical student in Kenya. Next month, he will enter a family practice residency at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Colin Harrington, M.D.

Colin Harrington, M.D., will receive the most prestigious award presented to a faculty member during the Medical School Convocation. The M.D. graduating class chose Harrington to receive the Senior Citation, writing, “Students are proud to call you their teacher, for you energetically and gently guide, give feedback, and instill confidence. We should all emulate your love of medicine, professional conduct, and consideration for patients. This award is in recognition of the fact that we appreciate your dedication to interdisciplinary study, devotion to rigor, poised humanism and deep knowledge.” Harrington is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior.

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