Claire Pomeroy, chief executive officer of the UC Davis Health System, has been elected chair of the board of directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers.

Pomeroy

Pomeroy, who is also vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine, was named chair at the association’s annual meeting earlier this month in San Francisco.

“Dr. Pomeroy is a visionary and dynamic leader who deeply understands the challenges and opportunities facing academic health centers,” Steven A. Wartman, association president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. "I very much look forward to working with her and the AAHC board in this critical time as we work to advance knowledge to improve health and well-being."

Pomeroy, a nationally respected expert in infectious diseases, is a professor of internal medicine and microbiology and immunology.

As part of her special interest in health care policy and as an advocate for the social determinants of health, she founded the Center for Reducing Health Disparities, established the Institute for Population Health Improvement, and led the establishment of Rural-PRIME, a program designed to prepare physicians to practice in underserved rural communities.

"Claire's appointment reflects the high esteem in which she is held by her peers and her thought leadership on the myriad complex issues facing our nation's academic medical institutions," Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said. "We are proud to see one of our own take on such an important national leadership role."

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Professor Emeritus Gary Snyder, a Pulitizer Prize-winning poet, is the recipient of the 2012 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.

Snyder

Established in 1994, the $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Recipients are nominated and elected each year by a majority vote of the academy’s Board of Chancellors. Previous recipients include poets John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin and Adrienne Rich.

Snyder, a member of the Beat Generation of poets, served as a member of the English department faculty for 16 years, starting in 1986. His more than 20 volumes of poetry and prose include Turtle Island, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975; and No Nature, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992.

His many other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Bollingen Prize, Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Grand Prize, and Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2003 (serving a six-year term).

Jane Hirshfield, who joined the Board of Chancellors this year, said: “Gary Snyder has brought to American poetry a lyric poem whose subjects and views are objectively epic. His words look into the world and our human lives with acuity, affection and the ethics of a 10,000-year perception. They have altered and marked both how we know and how we say.”

The Academy of American Poets this year has awarded nearly $200,000 to poets at various stages of their careers. Snyder and the other prize recipients are due to be honored as part of the annual Poets Forum at The New School in New York City on Oct. 19.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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