Congratulations to Our 2025 Award Winners!

We’re pleased to announce our award winners for 2025. Recipients will receive their awards at our conference in Pittsburgh September 8-11, 2025.

J. Michael McGinnis Leadership Excellence Award
Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH

Dr. Perry N. Halkitis is an infectious disease epidemiologist, applied statistician, and public health psychologist. He conducts this work through his research, teaching, and activism. Dr. Halkitis is currently Dean, Hunterdon Professor of Public Health & Health Equity, and Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics & Epidemiology at the Rutgers School of Public Health, as well as the founder and Director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies.

Stephanie Robert Mentoring Award
Tara McKay

Dr. Tara McKay, PhD (she/her), is a nationally recognized expert in the field of LGBTQ+ population health, policy, and aging. She is co-founder and Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, which was recognized by the National Institutes of Health for advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in health research in 2024.

Early Career Award
Lauren Gaydosh, PhD

Dr. Lauren Gaydosh is an Associate Professor of Sociology and faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an investigator on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Lauren’s research focuses on population health disparities using life course and biosocial perspectives. 

IAPHS Student Award
Hanseul Cho, MD, MPH

Dr. Hanseul Cho examines the impact of social determinants and medications on population health using large-scale real-world health data. With training in epidemiology and biostatistics during her MPH and clinical expertise as an MD, her work bridges public health and medicine to inform global understanding of disease burden and its drivers.

IAPHS Postdoctoral Award
Shaon Lahiri, PhD, MPH

Dr. Shaon Lahiri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and Administration at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on delineating mechanisms of health behavior change, especially those related to harmful social norms. 

Health Equity Award
Zinzi Bailey, ScD, MSPH

Zinzi Bailey is a social epidemiologist focused on cancer health disparities, as well as the health impacts of and policy solutions for structural and institutional discrimination, especially at the intersection of public health and criminal justice. She is also interested in the use of data and indicators in equitable policy and management. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Zinzi serves as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program, a member of the IRL Research Team, and co-chair of the IRL Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Taskforce. Zinzi was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and, from 2015–2017, the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Health Equity in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy from 2014-2015, and a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management 2011-2014. She received her Doctor of Science degree in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and her Master of Science in Public Health degree with a concentration in Global Epidemiology from Emory University.