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JORDAN RECEIVES ACR REF EXCELLENCE IN INVESTIGATIVE MENTORING AWARD FROM AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION

ATLANTA – Joanne M. Jordan, MD, MPH, the Herman and Louise Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine, chief of the division of rheumatology, allergy, and immunology, and director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received the ACR REF Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award from the American College of Rheumatology during the ACR Annual Scientific Meeting, October 16 – 21 in Philadelphia, Penn. 

Through the Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award, the REF will honor an active ACR or ARHP member for their contributions to the rheumatology profession through outstanding and ongoing mentoring.

Dr. Joanne M. Jordan received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University, her medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and her Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. She received her training in internal medicine and sub-specialty training in rheumatology and immunology at Duke University Medical Center. She joined the faculty in the division of rheumatology and immunology at the University of North Carolina in 1987. Dr. Jordan is currently the Herman and Louise Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine in Arthritis, the chief of the division of rheumatology, allergy, and immunology, and the director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at UNC. She is also professor of orthopedics, adjunct professor of epidemiology, and director of UNC’s institutional T-32 Training Grant in Arthritis and Immunology and its Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center.
                                                           
The focus of Dr. Jordan’s research is the epidemiology of osteoarthritis, particularly as it relates to racial/ethnic and gender disparities. She is the founder and director of The Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project, a long-term study of osteoarthritis in African Americans and Whites in a rural county of North Carolina. This study is supported by continual funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1990 and from the National Institutes of Health since 1993. It is the focus of at least 30 ancillary studies, and a rich source for collaborative research and clinical training of numerous pre-medical, medical, graduate, and post-graduate students, and junior faculty. It was the first study of its kind to include African Americans and has provided critical information regarding racial/ethnic disparities in prevalence, incidence, and progression of knee and hip OA, biomarkers of joint metabolism in the osteoarthritis process, the role of environmental exposures to metals as novel risk factors for OA, and the co-morbidity of psychosocial conditions upon OA outcomes and disability. 

Dr. Jordan has been a grant reviewer for the American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation, multiple NIH institutes, the Canadian Arthritis Network Scientific and Medical Advisory Committee, and the Arthritis Foundation, for which she served as vice-chair and chair of the Clinical/Therapeutics/Outcomes study section. She has been an advisory editor and member of the Editorial Board of Arthritis and Rheumatism, an associate editor for Arthritis Care and Research, and is currently the deputy editor for clinical science of Osteoarthritis and Cartilage.

She is the recipient of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International’s Clinical Research Award. Many of her trainees have received Medical and Graduate Student Research Preceptorships and Achievement Awards, and the Distinguished Fellow Award from the REF, and Young Investigator Awards from the Osteoarthritis Research Society International.

The ACR is an organization of and for physicians, health professionals, and scientists that advances rheumatology through programs of education, research, advocacy and practice support that foster excellence in the care of people with or at risk for arthritis and rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.

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