Distinguished Researcher Award

The Roger Detels Distinguished Researcher Award in Infectious Disease Epidemiology will be awarded to an outstanding scholar or researcher with extraordinary contributions to the research field of infectious disease epidemiology, or an individual whose work has had a critical impact on infectious disease epidemiology methodology. Distinguished accomplishment, scientific contribution, and leadership impact in the field are criteria that are considered for a successful application.

Eligibility

Distinguished accomplishment, scientific contribution, and leadership impact in the field are criteria that are considered for a successful application.

Requirements

Candidates must be a member of SER at any career stage. Epidemiologists in academia, government and the private sector are eligible. Candidates must be nominated by at least one SER member. Self-nomination will not be accepted. Multiple nominations do not increase the likelihood of being awarded. In the case of multiple nominations for a single candidate, submitters will be contacted to coordinate a joint nomination.

Award Details

The winner of the competition receives $5,000 reimbursed travel expenses and/or an honorarium, to attend and present at SER’s annual meeting, held in June of each year.

Roger Detels, M.D. is a Distinguisher Professor of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases in the Department of Epidemiology, Jonathan Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles. Has served as President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the International Epidemiological Association. He is a recipient of the Lilienfeld Award among other honors. At UCLA he served as Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Dean of the School of Public Health. He has published over 550 research papers and is the senior editor of the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th and 7^th editions and co-editor of the 1^st and 2^nd editions of the Oxford Textbook of Global Health. During his career at UCLA he has mentored over 50 Ph.D. candidates from all over the world. He has received awards from the governments of China, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Previous Award Winners

2025

Anne Rimoin
Dr. Rimoin is a Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She is the Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health. Dr. Rimoin is the director of the Center for Global and Immigrant Health and is an internationally recognized expert on emerging infections, global health, surveillance systems, and vaccination.
Rimoin has been working in the DRC since 2002, where she founded the UCLA-DRC Health Research and Training program to train U.S. and Congolese epidemiologists to conduct high-impact infectious disease research in low-resource, logistically-complex settings.
Dr. Rimoin’s research focuses on emerging and vaccine preventable diseases. It has led to fundamental understandings of the epidemiology of human monkeypox in post-eradication of smallpox, long term immunity to Ebolavirus in survivors and durability of immune response to Ebola virus vaccine in health workers in DRC. Her current research portfolio includes studies of COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, Monkeypox and vaccine preventable diseases of childhood.
Rimoin’s expertise in emerging infectious disease and science communication have made her a regular on-camera subject-expert for local, national, and international news media outlets. Throughout the pandemic she has been a steady and trusted source of information on local Los Angeles news affiliates, national networks, cable news, and current affairs programs. She has also appeared in several public service announcements. Her expertise is regularly featured and often quoted in print media on issues surrounding COVID-19, Monkeypox, and other emerging infections in print media including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Rimoin earned her BA at Middlebury College, MPH at UCLA, and PhD at Johns Hopkins University. She started her career in global public health in as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa in the Guinea Worm Eradication Program. She has been recognized for her achievements in the fields of Epidemiology and Global Health with the Middlebury College Alumni Achievement Award (2017), induction as a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2019) and the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Global Achievement Award (2022).

2024

William Schaffner
William Schaffner, MD
Dr. William Schaffner is Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
After graduating from Yale in 1957, Schaffner attended the University of Freiburg, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar. He graduated from Cornell University Medical College in 1962 and completed residency training and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt.
He was commissioned in the U.S. Public Health Service as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for two years. He returned to Vanderbilt and established a long consultation with the Tennessee Department of Health and the CDC. He is a staunch advocate of collaboration between academic medical centers and public health institutions.
Dr. Schaffner has had numerous roles at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, including Hospital Epidemiologist (1969- 2006), Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory (1969- 1979), Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases (1982 – 1989) and Chair, Department of Preventive Medicine (1982 – 2013). He has received recognitions for his teaching of medical professionals of diverse types and levels of experience.
Dr. Schaffner’s primary focus has been the prevention of infectious diseases with a special interest in the implementation and evaluation of vaccines. He often is invited to comment in local and national media on communicable disease issues, translating research and public health events into language that the public can understand. He regards this as a teaching opportunity. He has had a special interest in the implementation and evaluation of vaccines.

2023

Neel Gandhi
Neel R. Gandhi, M.D is an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Physician, and Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Gandhi’s research has focused on tuberculosis (TB) infection and disease in low- and middle-income countries since 1998.
Since 2002, Dr Gandhi has maintained a study site in South Africa where he has conducted clinical research studies characterizing the transmission and epidemiology of TB and drug-resistant TB in a setting with a high prevalence of HIV co-infection. He has also engaged in translational studies examining immunologic and genetic factors that influence individual susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, with study sites in Kenya, Ethiopia, Brazil, and India. Dr. Gandhi’s research group has conducted seminal studies demonstrating that transmission of drug-resistant TB strains is a dominant factor driving the rapid expansion of the epidemic. They have also shown that individuals co-infected with drug-resistant TB and HIV can be safely and successfully treated when TB medications and antiretroviral therapy are given concurrently. His group is now investigating transmission of TB through casual contact, resistance to bedaquiline and other new TB medicines, and genetic and immunologic factors associated with TB infection and disease.

Distinguished Researcher Award

Eligibility

Requirements

Award Details

Previous Award Winners

2025

2024

2023

2023

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