Gold Medal Researcher 2016

During the month of August, AJE hosted a Gold Medal Research competition. In this competition, 475 researchers were nominated as a Gold Medal Researcher based on their work and outstanding contributions. This booklet above includes the top 25 Finalists.

View this booklet to learn more about the top 25 Finalists in the Gold Medal Research competition!

After considering all nominations, 3 winners were chosen! AJE's 2016 Gold Medal Researchers are:

1st Place: Dr. Barbara Kabai Burmen, Kenya Medical Research Institute Center for Global Health Research, Kenya

Excerpt from nominations: "Dr. Barbara Burmen is a medical doctor, a public health specialist and a doctoral student in public health. She serves as a Senior Research Officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute. For the past 6 years, she has served as the Kenyan based principal investigator for the Tuberculosis Intensified case finding study at 15 HIV clinics in the former Nyanza province of Kenya. From this study she authored the first publication from the study and received an award in recognition for her efforts to improve lung health in Kenya.

Dr. Barbara has also served as the principal investigator of a study that sought to determine the acceptability of HIV testing among grieving populations visiting a funeral home at a regional referral hospital in Kenya. She also volunteers her services as a mentor on AuthorAID, a global network that provides support, mentoring, resources and training for health researchers in developing countries."

2nd Place: Dr. Gnanaraj Jesudian, Karunya University, India

Excerpt from nominations: "Dr. Gnanaraj is a urologist and laparoscopic surgeon working among the poor and the needy for three decades in remote and rural hospitals. His interest is to take modern surgery to the poor and marginalized in rural areas, which has inspired him to help 23 hospitals start minimally invasive surgeries and train many rural doctors. He developed high tech diagnostic and surgical camps that have benefited thousands of rural patients, with over 50,000 of them receiving modern surgical care in the remote areas over the past three decades.

The single incision, gasless laparoscopic surgeries are possible under spinal anesthesia with low cost equipment thus doing away with the logistic nightmare of getting gases and expensive anesthesia doctors and equipment. The task specific training and competency based credentialing model of training rural doctors and surgeons is now endorsed by Lancet commission on global health and WHO."

3rd Place: Dr. Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan, Xiamen University, China

Excerpt from nominations: "[Tonni's contributions] to applied technology in the field has earned him top accolades recently. To improve dialogue between stakeholders and policy-makers about sciences, he participated in 2010 Nobel Laureate Meetings and 2015 World Science Forum in Lindau (Germany) and Budapest (Hungary) in June 2010 and November 2015, respectively. Recently his work in waste management was recognized by New England Biolabs (Boston) with the 2014 Passions in Science Awards for Environmental Stewardship and by ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology with the 2015 Green Award.

Tonni was actively involved in pioneering organic waste reduction in Surabaya (Indonesia) using Japan's innovation Takakura technology. Its implementation has attained a steady 30% reduction of organic waste. About 3,421 Mt of CO2 equivalent emissions could be reduced annually from local landfills. It is not always necessary to promote cutting-edge technology in developing countries, rather efficient energy, inexpensive, and convenient device is more suitable for this. What is common in Japan is really novel and seminal in Indonesia."

Thank you to our panel of judges which included Allison Belan, Assistant Director for Digital Strategy and Systems for Duke University Press, Tricia Hudson, Associate Director of Institutional Marketing at Oxford University Press, and Jennifer Deyton, Senior Partner at J&J Editorial.

Additionally, we would like to thank everyone who participated in this competition. We recognize and appreciate the numerous researchers whose work is making an impact in their field, their communities, and around the globe!