UAMS Faculty Member Receives Community Service Award from UA Alumni Association

By todd

| LITTLE ROCK – Deborah O. Erwin, Ph.D., director for Cancer Education for the Arkansas Cancer Research Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), is the recipient of the University of Arkansas Alumni Association’s 2004 Community Service Award. Erwin is the 14th recipient of this prestigious award and the daughter of another former award winner, Willie Oates, who received the award in 1991.

The Community Service Award recognizes the unselfish and extensive volunteer services by alumni to their community and humankind. She will be presented with the award Oct. 22 at the Alumni Awards Dinner in Fayetteville. She also will be recognized during the pre-game activities for the homecoming football game Oct. 23.

A medical anthropologist, Erwin is a professor of health behavior & health education in the UAMS College of Public Health and is adjunct in the department of surgery in the UAMS College of Medicine. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas and her Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Erwin has received numerous competitive grants and national awards for her research and service in cancer education, including most recently a Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation research grant to increase screening in Latinos. She has published widely in medical anthropology and cancer education publications.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center and a statewide network of regional centers. The school has about 2,170 students and 650 residents and is the state’s largest public employer with almost 9,000 employees. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of about $3.8 billion a year.

UAMS Medical Center includes the Arkansas Cancer Research Center, Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging, Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy and Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute.