MSU All-University Awards Honor Outstanding Faculty and Staff

March 18, 2021

MSU recognized the achievements of Ade Olomu, MD, and Madeleine Lenski with distinguished awards for their contributions to the university and their fields of research. The MSU Awards Convocation for 2021 recipients will be scheduled next year due to the pandemic.

Ade Olomu Receives William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award

Adesuwa “Ade” B. Olomu, MD, is a 2020 recipient of the Michigan State University William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award in recognition of her profoundly innovative and impactful research, outreach to the most vulnerable populations, excellent teaching and mentoring, and service to MSU and her profession.

Dr. Olomu is the Blanch B. and Frederick C. Swartz Endowed Professor of Medicine and has dedicated her career to scholarship on bridging the disparity gap in cardiovascular care and outcomes for minority and low-income populations. Her scholarship focuses on the design and implementation of clinical interventions that bring scientific research findings into practice by implementing evidence-based, clinical care models to improve patient management and outcomes. Her innovative Office-Guidelines Applied to Practice Model for translating research into clinical practice in preventive cardiology has been demonstrated to improve diabetic care, blood pressure control and heart disease prevention. This model has been implemented at Federally Qualified Health Centers throughout the nation.

Olomu’s research has been widely published and cited, with more than 100 peer-reviewed abstracts and articles in such publications as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and Journal of General Internal Medicine; five book chapters; and more than 80 national and international presentations. Her article, “Interventions for Providers to Promote a Patient-Centered Approach in Clinical Consultations,” was one of the top 10 Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group’s reviews in 2015, receiving 1,470 citations by 2020.

Olomu has served as a role model and mentor to many residents, medical and graduate students, and junior faculty. Her teaching evaluations are consistently excellent and contain such comments as, “Dr. Olomu is a phenomenal teacher. She always made morning rounds a learning opportunity and provided opportunities for medical students and residents to perform clinical exam skills. Students are lucky to be on her service.” Her outstanding teaching skills have earned her both the CHM Outstanding Clinician and the CHM Outstanding Faculty Awards.

Additionally, Olomu has played key roles on local, regional and national committees. She was a member of the NIH Behavioral Medicine Interventions and Outcomes Study Section for six years and currently serves as chair of the Association of Chiefs and Leaders of General Internal Medicine, Unified Leadership Training in Diversity Program. At MSU, Olomu serves as her department’s vice-chair for research and the college’s faculty excellence advocate.

Madeleine Lenski Receives Distinguished Academic Staff Award

For nearly three decades, research specialist Madeleine Lenski, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, has managed large national and international research efforts to explore why children sometimes develop motor and intellectual disabilities, especially cerebral palsy, and what can be done to help them. Recognized as an outstanding researcher, she helps motivate her fellow collaborators to move research forward. Believing that health research is not useful unless it helps the people who need it, Lenski places the needs of children and families foremost. She manages a website that provides much-needed information on resources for the families of children with cerebral palsy and has organized six statewide meetings of cerebral palsy researchers in Michigan, in which people with cerebral palsy and their families have been active participants. One of our state’s leaders in providing services to children with disabilities describes these conferences as “top notch, including cutting-edge research and a human side; the most recent conference included a dance presentation with one of the dancers a young man with cerebral palsy.”

Lenski has led numerous studies focused on the outcomes of very premature babies, including coordinating a four-year, five-nation study comparing their childhood outcomes. She has arranged scientific meetings and helped create a common database for researchers to meet to compare findings, which showed similarities in some important developmental outcomes as well as ways that mortality and later morbidity patterns differed.

Whether reassuring an anxious mother on a phone call or preparing the placenta of a high-risk baby for in-depth study in a hospital delivery room, Lenski completes whatever tasks are needed to advance research and help study participants. Her work might involve designing a system for assessing a new way to treat cerebral palsy or organizing an international meeting of investigators.

Lenski plays an indispensable role in the intellectual activity of her department by serving as the coordinator of the department’s guest speaker series, ensuring that the outstanding epidemiologists and biostatisticians invited to MSU have an exceptional visit. She is also the person students, especially international students, turn to for support and encouragement, knowing she is a person they can trust.

For her commitment to children with disabilities and their families, her contributions to the science of prevention and management of these disabilities, and her tireless support of her department, Madeleine Lenski is an ideal recipient for Michigan State University’s Distinguished Academic Staff Award.