What is the anatomy of an effective teacher?For Adam C. Puche, PhD, it is to be engaging, approachable, organized, respectful of the learner, and mindful of what it is like not to know something. This philosophy has led Puche, professor and vice chair, Department of Neurobiology, to become one of the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) most popular teachers.Puche is widely known across the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) schools for teaching the foundational medical disciplines of gross anatomy, histology, and embryology. He has received awards from every graduating medical class he has taught. And now he has been named the 2024 UMB Founders Week Educator of the Year.Learn more: https://www.umaryland.edu/founders/founders-week-award-winners/educator-of-the-year/

Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, MS, first became fascinated with the placebo effect and pain management when she was in medical school.“I was captivated by the brain’s functions, especially how little we know about its role in healing and how it influences the perception of pain-related symptoms,” said Colloca, professor, Department of Pain and Translational Symptom Science, University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), and University of Maryland MPower professor.Colloca is an international expert in the fields of placebo effect and nocebo effect — the opposite of the placebo effect in which instead of having a positive response, patients have negative outcomes to treatments that cannot be explained by the treatments’ pharmacologic effects — and mechanisms of pain modulation. She has secured multiple National Institutes of Health awards, including several R01 grants and an R21 grant. For her pioneering work, Colloca has been named the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) 2024 Founders Week Researcher of the Year.Learn more: https://www.umaryland.edu/founders/founders-week-award-winners/researcher-of-the-year/