The UNMC College of Medicine held its 2025 research retreat in October, using the event to celebrate the research successes of the preceding year.
The event featured a welcome by Bradley Britigan, MD, dean of the UNMC College of Medicine, and a presentation by Michael Hasselberg, PhD, chief transformation and digital officer for UNMC and Nebraska Medicine on “The Digital Transformation of Health Care.”
Babu Guda, PhD, associate dean for research development at the college, said this was the second year for a new format for the retreat, designed to allow college leaders to identify and recognize the many deserving college researchers.
“We have multiple categories of recognition,” Dr. Guda said. “For example, noting someone who has had a publication that was cited 1,000 times or was published in an especially high-impact-factor journal, we have recognition categories for that.”
The event also celebrated the achievements of students and clinical fellows with early-career awards.
Awards included recognitions from the college’s Research and Development Committee; extramural awards and subawards of more than $50,000; publications with more than 1,000 citations; patents awarded; new R03 and R21 awards; new P, U and F awards; and new R01 awards.
See the faculty and achievements recognized at the event.
Dr. Guda also noted the backlog of award notifications by the federal agencies in the first half of this year, which means more award notifications are expected in the FY 2026.
“As long as we have the fundamentals and foundations right, in the research, service and teaching categories, academic medicine will continue to thrive. And this ceremony showed that.”
Dr. Guda lauded the passion and productivity he sees in the college’s researchers. “You cannot have productivity if you don’t have passion,” he said. “And the faculty at UNMC have that fire in the belly, that passion to keep pushing forward. That’s what drives all of us.”