Research!America Announces 2026 Advocacy Awards to Honor Nation’s Top Medical and Health Leaders
Arlington, VA – Research!America is pleased to announce recipients of the 2026 Advocacy Awards. Given annually since 1996, the Advocacy Awards recognize individuals and organizations whose leadership efforts have advanced the nation’s commitment to medical and health research and science more broadly. Research!America will formally present the awards during an event at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2026.
“Our honorees are a stellar group of remarkable leaders who have worked tirelessly to fight for research progress that will benefit all Americans,” said Research!America Board Chair Sudip Parikh, Ph.D. “Celebrating these champions of science and innovation is sure to inspire others to advocate for, invest in, and ensure access to science that will improve the health of Americans and people around the world.”
Our distinguished awardees announced today:
- Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research!America, will receive the John Edward Porter Legacy Award. The award, generously supported by the late Ann Lurie,recognizes individuals who show outstanding commitment to sustaining the nation’s world-class leadership in medical and health research. Woolley will step down as president and CEO of Research!America in early 2026, having guided the alliance for more than 35 years, almost since its founding. In 1990, Research!America made the first of several calls for the NIH budget to be doubled, a goal that was achieved in 2003. Woolley’s hand has been on the tiller throughout the organization’s years of advocacy: advocacy that has maintained a constant drumbeat for research funding and policy. She has played a key role in steering the state and national public opinion surveys commissioned by Research!America. She has held numerous leadership positions. Woolley is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of AAAS. She is co-founder and co-chair of the Science and Technology Action Committee.
- Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), will receive the Builders of Science Award, which recognizes distinguished scientists who provide inspiration and determination for building or rebuilding an outstanding home for research. Dr. Volkow had led NIDA since 2003. She has championed for more research projects at the agency on substance use disorders, focusing on neuroscience and the science around addiction and its prevention and treatment. Her work has helped change the stigma surrounding substance use disorders and addiction. Among her accomplishments, she pioneered the ABCD and HCBD projects to map the developmental trajectories of the human brain and their association with mental health and with environmental and genetic factors.
- Gerald Chan will receive the Gordon and Llura Gund Leadership Award, which honors volunteer leaders whose significant contributions have made an extraordinary impact on the level of advocacy for medical, public health, or other health-related research in their communities or on the state or national level. Dr. Chan is a scientist and a major figure in the biotech industry. His family’s foundation has made substantial donations to the Harvard School of Public Health, since renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health after Dr. Chan’s late father, and to the University of Massachusetts’ medical school, since renamed the UMass Chan Medical School. As chair of Stealth BioTherapeutics, he led the development of a drug for the ultra-rare disease of Barth Syndrome, the first mitochondria-targeting drug approved by the FDA. Chan is a trustee of the Scripps Research Institute and chair of the advisory committee of Emory University’s Center for Innovative and Affordable Medicine.
- Arthur Rubenstein, MBBCh, professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, will receive the Herbert Pardes Family Award for National Leadership in Advocacy for Research. This award recognizes individuals who, like the late Dr. Pardes, have demonstrated distinguished academic leadership and sustained commitment to public engagement and advocacy for research. Dr. Rubenstein is an internationally renowned endocrinologist, recognized for his clinical expertise and groundbreaking research on diabetes. He is well known for inspiring the next generation of health care providers and has served in numerous professional leadership positions throughout his career. He was the executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine from September 2001 to July 2011.
- AcademyHealth will receive the Paul G. Rogers Distinguished Organization Advocacy Award. Aaron E. Carroll, president and CEO of AcademyHealth, will accept on behalf of the organization. As the leading nonpartisan advocate for health services and policy research, AcademyHealth has long marshalled support of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as the organizer and home of the “Friends of AHRQ” coalition. In early 2025, amid the rapidly changing political landscape of public health, AcademyHealth launched the Situation Report newsletter, which quickly became a trusted source of insights keeping the field informed, engaged, and activated.
We are also pleased to announce honorees of the Outstanding Achievement in Public Health Awards, generously supported by Johnson & Johnson. These awards celebrate and champion the role individuals and organizations play through research, communication, and public-private partnerships in confronting public health threats that jeopardize our security, prosperity, and well-being.
- Puerto Rico Vector Control Unit – Puerto Rico Science, Technology, and Research Trust will receive the Outstanding Achievement in Public Health Award. Grayson Brown, executive director, will accept on behalf of the organization. This award recognizes an individual or organization for their extraordinary work and enormous contributions to public health. Established in 2016, in cooperation with the CDC, the Puerto Rico Vector Control Unit is the leading organization dedicated to preventing mosquito-borne diseases in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories and affiliated islands in the Caribbean and Pacific. The group built the island’s first comprehensive vector surveillance and control system and has established labs that inform public health decision making.
- Sir Nicholas J. Wald, DSc (Med), FRCP, FRS, professor of preventive medicine, University College London Institute of Health Informatics; the late Godfrey P. Oakley, Jr., M.D., MSPM, former director of the CDC’s Birth Defects Division; and Richard B. Johnston, Jr., M.D., emeritus professor of pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine and National Jewish Health; will be recognized with the Outstanding Achievement in Public Health: Building the Foundation Award. This award recognizes one or more individuals whose research discovery played a pivotal role in advancing public health. Taken together, the complementary work of the three honorees showed that folate deficiency is the principal cause of neural-tube defects, and their work was instrumental in achieving mandated folic-acid fortification of the U.S. grain supply. This FDA-approved fortification has prevented 33,000 U.S. neural-tube-defect pregnancies to-date with a $9 billion economic benefit.
- Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will be recognized with the Rapid Translation Award. This award honors a public-private partnership that has made a critical contribution to public health progress in a timely way. Since its launch in 2017, CEPI has forged public-private partnerships to develop lifesaving vaccines against epidemic and pandemic threats. CEPI funds the world’s leading vaccine candidates against pathogens, including Lassa fever, Nipah, and Rift Valley fever, and is pioneering global efforts to accelerate vaccine development in response to future pandemic threats. During COVID-19, CEPI contributed to the licensure of seven vaccines and co-founded COVAX, which delivered two billion doses to 146 countries.
The honorees of the Edwin C. Whitehead Award for Medical Research Advocacy, as well as other honorees, will be announced early next year.
For more information about the 2026 Advocacy Awards, including bios of each honoree and details about the various awards, visit our Advocacy Awards web page.
Contact Glenn O’Neal, Senior Director of Communications, at 571-482-2737 or [email protected] with press inquiries.