FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts
Jaime Stephens, AUPHA, 703-894-0940
Brad Wright, PhD, Named 2016 Recipient of the Thompson Prize for Young Investigators
Arlington, VA, June 2, 2016 -- In recognition of his significant contributions to research literature in the field of health services, Brad Wright, PhD, University of Iowa, has been selected as the recipient of the 2016 John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. The Prize will be presented during the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) Annual Meeting Award Luncheon on Friday, June 24, 2016 in Kansas City, MO.
The Prize was established to honor John D. Thompson, a professor of health administration, who set standards in teaching, commitment to learning, collegial relationships, and health services research which are without peer. It is awarded to faculty from AUPHA members programs whose work, which may be in any of the several fields of disciplines, contributes to knowledge in health services.
Dr. Wright was nominated by Jonathan Oberlander, PhD, Professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy & Management School of Medicine and Gillings School of Global Public Health University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr Oberlander remarked, “His career has gotten off to a tremendous start thanks to his hard work and strong research and publication skills, and he has already made important contributions to the field, yet I firmly believe the best is yet to come.”
Dr. Wright earned a Masters in Health Policy from George Washington University before entering the PhD program in Health Policy & Management (with a concentration in health politics and policy) at the University of North Carolina School Of Public Health. After receiving his PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2011, Dr. Wright went to Brown University as a postdoctoral fellow in Health Services Research at the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research under the mentorship of Dr. Vince Mohr. In 2012, Dr. Wright joined the faculty at the University of Iowa as an assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy within the College of Public Health.
According to Dr. Oberlander, “Put simply, Brad is a rising star in health care policy and health services research. He has a tremendous work ethic and a real knack for identifying compelling research questions. And he knows how to write. While still in graduate school, Brad published in top-tier journals, including American Journal of Public Health, Social Science & Medicine, and Health Services Research. Since joining the faculty at the University of Iowa, Brad has been tremendously productive in terms of publications. During 2013-14 alone he published 14 articles in journals such as Medical Care, Health Services Research, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law —he is first or solo author on all but one of those 14 articles, with more currently under review.
Brad’s research to date has focused on underserved populations and their access to medical care, Medicare and Medicaid, and community health centers, which he studied for his dissertation. Brad’s work on community health centers is an exciting, innovative, theoretically rich, and methodologically sophisticated project that speaks to important issues in health policy and organizational theory”.
Upon receiving the news that he was the 2016 recipient of the Thompson Prize, Dr. Wright said “I am truly honored to be the 2016 recipient of AUPHA’s John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. The field of health services research is perhaps more important today than it has ever been, and the work we do to inform policy and practice is instrumental to ensuring access to affordable, high quality care for everyone. I entered this field hoping to improve the health and healthcare of vulnerable populations, and I am privileged to consider this work my calling in life. Having my work validated by others in the field in such a prominent way is extremely gratifying, but it is also daunting to have my name added to a list of prior recipients who are such luminaries in the field. I can only hope that, in time, I might live up to the distinction.”
Nominations for the 2017 Thompson Prize will be solicited early next year for submissions by spring 2017. In order to be eligible for the Prize, the nominee must be a faculty member at a Full Member Program of AUPHA, have been awarded a PhD no more than six years prior to consideration, and have not yet achieved tenure. The Prize is intended to serve as a benchmark for pre-tenure work.
# # #
The Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) is a global network of colleges, universities, faculty, individuals and organizations dedicated to the improvement of healthcare delivery through excellence in healthcare management and policy education. Its mission is to fosters excellence and innovation in health management and policy education, and scholarship. It is the only non-profit entity of its kind that works to improve the delivery of health services – and thus the health of citizens – throughout the world by educating professional managers at the entry level. AUPHA's membership includes the premier baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degree programs in health administration education in the United States, Canada, and around the world. Its faculty and individual members represent more than 400 colleges and universities. For more information, please visit www.aupha.org.