Patricia Marie Byers, M.D., professor of clinical surgery, has been appointed Florida’s trauma medical director by the Florida Department of Health. She will head up the state’s network of 21 trauma centers, including the Ryder Trauma Center at UM/Jackson, and related programs that provide support to communities during mass casualty events such as hurricanes and other disasters.

Ralph L. Sacco, M.D. MS., Olemberg Family Chair in Neurological Disorders, Miller Professor of Neurology, Epidemiology and Human Genetics, and chairman of the Department of Neurology, has been selected for the Javits Investigator Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The U.S. Congress has asked that awards be made for neuroscience research in honor of the late Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York. Sacco’s grant will fund the continuation of the multiethnic Northern Manhattan Study on stroke and stroke risk factors.

Carl Eisdorfer, Ph.D., M.D., Knight Professor and director of the UM Center on Aging, has received the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. Eisdorfer was recognized for his enormous body of work that focused research on not just prolonging life, but improving it by bringing together different disciplines to enhance the performance and quality of life of older people worldwide.

Barth A. Green, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery, received the UM Faculty Senate’s highest honor, the James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award. The honor is given to a member of the University community who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in service to the institution and community. Green co-founded both The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and Project Medishare, a nonprofit medical initiative that brings health care to Haiti’s central plateau.