Gillings School boasts two of four Hettleman Prize winners

September 10, 2015

Dr. Wizdom Powell

Dr. Jason Surratt

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health faculty members Wizdom Powell, PhD, associate professor of health behavior, and Jason Surratt, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering, have been awarded the University of North Carolina’s Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty.

Powell and Surratt are among four UNC faculty members selected for the 2015 honor.

The award, established in 1986 by Phillip Hettleman, a New York investment banker and 1921 UNC alumnus, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty and includes a $5,000 stipend.

Powell is recognized nationally for the impact of her work in public health and health policy as it relates to gender and race. She has made significant breakthroughs in the understanding of health at the intersection of gender and race as it applies to men of color and in adoption of research-based approaches to health disparities and mental health policy.

Her work addresses the “gender paradox” that men, despite having more social power than women, are more likely to experience premature death than are women. Her early scholarly contributions explored how social constructions of masculinity contributed to the ways in which men of color use health-care services. She demonstrated that African-American men’s definitions of masculinity not only differed conceptually from those espoused by non-Hispanic white males, but were constructed in response to structural barriers to socioeconomic mobility, such as racial discrimination.

“Dr. Powell shows great potential as a researcher,” said Leslie Lytle, PhD, professor and chair of the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior. “She has been successful in obtaining external and internal funding for her important research, including a recent career development award from the National Institutes of Drug Abuse. Her extremely innovative work likely will result in more effective prevention interventions and policies related to the health and well-being of men and boys of color.”

In her nomination letter, Giselle Corbie-Smith, MD, director of the Center for Health Equity Research, described Powell as a gifted scholar who deftly moves between abstract theory, pragmatic implementation and translation to policy and practice.

Powell earned a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 2005 before joining the Carolina faculty in 2007.

Surratt’s research in the field of atmospheric chemistry establishes a critical link between human health and the health of the planet. Within this broad area, he has helped advance the understanding of how fine particles (aerosols) are formed in the atmosphere by investigating how volatile organic compounds emitted by trees and other vegetation interact with man-made pollutants to form secondary organic aerosols.

More importantly, his work is identifying major components of those particles that have eluded other researchers for many years. Knowing the composition of aerosols will allow their health effects to be studied in finer detail, and knowing how their components are formed in the atmosphere can lead to interventions to minimize their formation.

“Jason has had an incredible start to his young academic career,” said Michael Aitken, PhD, professor and chair of the Gillings School’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. “His research already has influenced the field of atmospheric chemistry, and even well-established, senior researchers are learning from his work. He has won other prestigious awards from professional organizations, and he has been invited to speak at top conferences on atmospheric science, including the 2015 Gordon Research Conference. Overall, Jason’s groundbreaking research has direct implications for both environmental policy and human health.”

Surratt earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from N.C. State University in 2003 and his doctorate in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology.

“We are so thrilled by and grateful for the selection of associate professors Powell and Surratt to receive prestigious Hettleman Awards,” said Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, dean and Alumni Distinguished Professor at the Gillings School. “These two faculty members are conducting cutting-edge research that will benefit society. They are not only outstanding researchers and dedicated teachers but wonderful citizens of the University and their communities. I am very proud of Jason and Wizdom.”

Other Hettleman Prize recipients are Gabriel Dichter, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine and investigator in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disability, and David Nicewicz, PhD, associate professor of chemistry in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences.

Dichter’s highly respected work examines whether brain reward circuits are implicated in autism, as they are in other behavior disorders such as addition, schizophrenia and depression. Nicewicz pioneered a set of advances in the formation of small molecule building blocks by joining low-energy light and organic dyes. The combination activates common organic structures in unique ways and enables novel transformations.

All four recipients will be recognized at the Sept. 25 UNC faculty council meeting. Awardees also are asked to deliver a lecture during the academic year in which they are chosen.

More on Phillip Hettleman
As a student at Carolina, Hettleman was business manager of The Daily Tar Heel when Thomas Wolfe was editor. In 1946, Hettleman bought a portrait of the then-famous author, and for years it hung in his office in New York City. One of his earliest gifts to the University, the portrait hangs in the Wolfe Room of the N.C. Collection in Wilson Library. Hettleman died in 1986.