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This annual award honors an IAMSE member who has made significant innovations to the field in the short time they have focused their careers toward enhancing teaching, learning, and assessment. Candidates for this award will be Assistant Professor or equivalent rank, or have demonstrated less than 10 years of educational scholarship. An award recipient will have a record of excellence in teaching at his/her institution and possess a record of engagement within IAMSE. It is recognized that, while the successful nominee will have a proven track record of innovating and helping advance the art of teaching, s/he may not yet have achieved significant accomplishments in scholarship. The Educational Scholarship Committee reviews all nominations and supporting documentation based on established criteria and selects finalists. Final approval of each award recipient rests with the IAMSE Board of Directors.

2018 Award Winner—David Harris, PhD

University of Central Florida, Associate Professor of Physiology

David received his PhD in physiology from Temple University’s School of Medicine in 2004. Afterwards, he did a post doc at Thomas Jefferson University’s Center for Translational Medicine in heart failure and hypertension research. In 2008, he joined Drexel University College of Medicine as course director of medical physiology in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. Three years later, he moved away from his home area of Philadelphia and accepted a founding faculty medical educator position at the University of Central Florida (UCF) College of Medicine in 2011. During his time at UCF, he has been able to develop his scholarly interests, which include active learning pedagogies and the use of high fidelity patient simulation with pre-clerkship medical students. He has published articles in Advances in Physiology Education (Advances), Medical Science Educator, and MedEd Portal and has presented numerous educational posters, workshops, and focus sessions at IAMSE annual meetings. He has been active nationally by serving on American Physiology Society (APS) committees, serving as Associate Editor of Advances, and serving on the leadership team of the Aquifer Sciences (formerly MedU) to develop a national curriculum for preventing harm through basic science knowledge. He has also won numerous awards such as the APS New Investigator Award, the APS Teaching Career Enhancement Award, and the UCF Pre-clinical Innovative Teaching Award. He enjoys spending time with his wife Renata and daughters Isabella and Alicia, who are his biggest accomplishment and volunteering to teach English as a Second Language.