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2026 Winners of the Lucey Prize
Larner at the Vermont City Marathon
Carney’s Distinguished Alumni Award from Alma Mater
Reblin Selected as Chair of Cancer SIG
Sigmon Recognized with University Scholars Award
American Thoracic Society Awards 2026 Trudeau Medal to Charles Irvin, Ph.D.
Charles Irvin, Ph.D., professor of medicine and molecular physiology & biophysics and former director of the Vermont Lung Center at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal from the American Thoracic Society (ATS). The honor recognizes exceptional professionalism, collegiality, and citizenship within the ATS community and is considered a career‑defining achievement in respiratory medicine.
“Receiving this prestigious award makes all the years of perseverance and hard work worth it. I am so deeply grateful to all of my colleagues and peers,” said Dr. Irvin, who has studied lung health and disease for more than 50 years. An internationally recognized applied physiologist, Irvin has focused his career on uncovering the mechanisms of airway dysfunction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.
Through multidisciplinary work spanning molecular biology, animal models, imaging, physiology, and clinical studies, he and his colleagues aim to advance understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic airway disease.
Read more about Dr. Irvin and the Trudeau Medal
Honors Night Celebrates Larner Students, Staff, Faculty, and Residents
On May 12, the Larner College of Medicine celebrated its 2026 graduating medical students—as well as outstanding faculty, staff, and residents—at Honors Night. This annual event celebrates exceptional achievement and excellence in humanism, leadership, scholarship, and clinical care and features honor society awards, recognition of AHEC Scholars, major class awards, and departmental prizes spanning medicine, surgery, pediatrics, neurology, and more, highlighting the dedication and impact of learners and educators across both Larner’s Vermont and Connecticut campuses.
Read the full story about the 2026 Honors Night awards recipients
Winners of the 2026 Jerold and Ingela Lucey Early Career Investigator Prize
The Department of Pediatrics has announced the 2026 winners of the annual Jerold and Ingela Lucey Early Career Investigator Prize for Innovations in Infant or Child Health (a/k/a “the Lucey Prize”). The prize honors Jerold Lucey, M.D., a pioneer in pediatrics who spent his career at the University of Vermont championing innovations that improved the survival and health of preterm babies. The Lucey Prize is awarded to recipients from three career levels—current medical students; UVM Medical Center / Golisano Children’s Hospital residents / fellows; and early-career faculty members—for work over the past three years exploring new horizons in neonatology and/or other areas of pediatrics. The prize is a monetary award of $1,500 to each level awardee or their team, along with an award plaque.
This year’s winners are:
- Andries Feder, Fourth-Year Medical Student, for “Cladebreaker: A Validated Tool for Phylogenomic Outbreak Investigation”
- Christopher P. Kruglik, M.D.’26, M.Sc., Recent Graduate, for “Examining Audiometric Screening Outcomes in Non-Native English-Speaking Pediatric Patients”
- Julia Litzky, M.D., Ph.D., Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellow, for “Improving Support at Home: Using Quality Improvement to Increase Discharge Home Health Referrals for Infants with NOWS”
- Christian Pulcini, M.D., M.P.H., M.Ed., Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, for “Human-Centered Design to Create an Emergency Care Action Plan for Infants with Medical Complexity”
The awardees were honored and presented their work at Pediatric Grand Rounds on May 27.
Larner Volunteers Staff Vermont City Marathon Medical Tent
On Sunday, May 24, Burlington hosted the annual Vermont City Marathon, as hundreds of runners and spectators converged at the Lake Champlain waterfront. Larner College of Medicine faculty and medical students once again volunteered in the medical tent, where Katie Dolbec, M.D.’10, assistant dean for students in the office of medical education and associate professor of emergency medicine, served as medical director.
The volunteers worked alongside paramedics, emergency medical technicians, athletic trainers, physical therapists, nurses, and nurse practitioners, prepared to provide advanced care at the run in the event of nausea, wounds, fractures, bleeds, arrhythmias, hyponatremia, exertional heat stroke, and more.
Other Larner volunteers at the medical tent included attending physicians Aaron Brillhart, M.D., Will Hart, M.D., Carrie Lyon, M.D., M.P.H., Marc Kutler, M.D., and Jessica Racusin, M.D.;residents Emily Feuka, M.D., Than Moore, M.D., and Austin Snyder, M.D.; and medical students Lexi Amaio ’27, Patrick Barrett ’28, Jake Bears ’28, Jessa Bradley ’29, Danielle Callard ’28, Sophia Cheever ’28, Michael Greenberg ’27, Nicki Nikkhoy ’27, Connor Nowak ’28, Estafania Obando ’27, Kyra Weaver ’27, and Kate Williams ’28.
Andrew Warfield ’27 Receives Prestigious Dr. Constantin Cope Medical Student Research Award
Larner medical student Andrew Warfield ’27 has earned one of the most prestigious honors in interventional radiology: the Dr. Constantin Cope Medical Student Research Award. The award, presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), recognizes the student author of an accepted abstract that best demonstrates spirit, inventiveness and scientific purity.
Warfield’s research, “Predicting Response to Renal Artery Stenting for Atherosclerotic Stenosis: Regression Analysis of a 20-year Single Center Cohort,” has already produced two abstracts and two peer‑reviewed papers.
The Cope Award, named for interventional radiology pioneer Dr. Constantine Cope, is considered the highest research distinction a medical student can receive in the field. It included a cash prize and a presentation during the society’s plenary session held in Toronto, Canada, April 11–15.
The award recognizes Warfield’s multidisciplinary work with nephrology on renal artery stenting—a project he began as a summer research scholar under Bill Majdalany, M.D., professor of radiology at Larner and division chief for interventional radiology and vice chair of research for radiology at UVM Health—between his MS1 and MS2 years.
Dr. Majdalany praised the achievement, noting the rarity and competitiveness of the honor. “I am overjoyed for him and our institution. Having previously been at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, University of Michigan, and Emory University, I can tell you that this award is highly competitive with few institutions ever having had a recipient.”
Warfield will also be featured in the society’s journal, Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, and quarterly magazine, IR Quarterly.
Jan Carney, M.D., M.P.H., Receives Distinguished Alumni Award from her Alma Mater
Larner Associate Dean for Public Health and Health Policy and Professor of Medicine Jan K. Carney, M.D., M.P.H., has been honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where she earned her M.D. in 1981. Dr. Carney has spent her career advancing public health and advocating for positive health outcomes.
Her work has spanned leadership roles such as serving as Vermont’s commissioner of health, where she championed children’s health insurance, youth anti-smoking initiatives, and improvements in cancer screening, to her recent induction as president of the American College of Physicians—the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the U.S.—further reflecting her national impact on the field.
Carney’s achievements and contributions were celebrated alongside those of other award recipients at an event during the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine’s 2026 Reunion Weekend April 17–April 18.
Maija Reblin, Ph.D., M.A., Elected Chair of Cancer Special Interest Group for Society of Behavioral Medicine
Larner Associate Professor of Family Medicine Maija Reblin, Ph.D., M.A., co-leader of the UVM Cancer Center’s Populations Sciences and Cancer Outcomes program, was recently elected incoming chair of the Cancer Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Society of Behavioral Medicine, a nonprofit organization of researchers, clinicians, educators, and policymakers that translates scientific insights into practical, evidence-based strategies to improve individual and public health. As chair of the Cancer SIG, Dr. Reblin will share her expertise in behavioral medicine across the cancer continuum.
Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., M.A., Receives University Scholars Award in Basic and Applied Sciences
The University Scholars Awards recognize distinguished UVM faculty members for sustained excellence in research and creative and scholarly activities in two categories: Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Creative Arts; and Basic and Applied Sciences (including biological, medical, and physical sciences). Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., M.A., professor of psychiatry at the Larner College of Medicine, was a recipient of the University Scholars Award in Basic and Applied Sciences.
Dr. Sigmon is a leading expert in behavioral pharmacology and substance use disorders, with more than 120 publications, major NIH funding, and extensive mentorship and service. She directs Vermont’s largest opioid treatment clinic and plays a key role in UVM’s national rural addiction center, impacting providers and patients across all 50 states.
Read more about Dr. Sigmon and the other recipients