Surgeons, trainees, and others were honored with awards and other recognitions during Clinical Congress 2026 in Washington, DC. Honorees include:
Distinguished Service Award
Charles Mabry, MD, FACS (Pine Bluff, AR)
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award
Timothy R. Billiar, MD, FACS (Pittsburgh, PA)
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award
Jo Buyske, MD, FACS (Philadelphia, PA)
Distinguished Philanthropist of the Year Award
Roger S. Foster Jr., MD, FACS, and Baiba J. Grube, MD, FACS (Shelburne, VT)
ACS/Pfizer Surgical Volunteerism and Humanitarian Awards
- Academic Global Surgeon Award: Juan Carlos Puyana, MD, FACS (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Surgical Humanitarian Award: Stephen M. Kelley, MD, FACS (Malumghat, Bangladesh)
- International Surgical Volunteerism Award: Steven M. Roser, DMD, MD, FACS (Atlanta, GA)
- Domestic Surgical Volunteerism Award: Ingrid M. Lizarraga, MBBS, FACS (Iowa City, IA)
- Military Surgical Volunteerism Award: Brian Gavitt, MD, MPH, FACS (Tucson, AZ)
- Resident Surgical Volunteerism Award: Phillip J. Hsu, MD, PhD (Ann Arbor, MI)
RAS-ACS Outstanding Mentor of the Year Award
Arun K. Gosain, MD, FACS (Chicago, IL)
Jameson L. Chassin Award for Professionalism in General Surgery
Alexandra Hernandez, MD, MCR, MS (Seattle, WA)
Resident Award for Exemplary Teaching
Taylor Carter, MD, MHPE (Chapel Hill, NC)
Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson II Promising Investigator Award
Frank M. Davis, MD (Ann Arbor, MI)
History of Surgery Poster Competition
- First place: Sonya Feeser, Omar Rokayak, DO, FACS, and Rahul J. Anand, MD, FACS (Richmond, VA): “From Battlefield Chaos to Organized Care: How Chimborazo Hospital Standardized Surgical Systems and Reduced Mortality During the Civil War”
- Second place: Baki Türkoglu, MD, PhD(c) (Ankara, Türkiye): “Sabuncuoglu: A 15th-century Turkish Surgeon Beyond Early Modern Western Civilization”
CoC State Chair Outstanding Performance Awards
- New York State Chair Jamal Rahaman, MBBS, FACS (New York, NY)
- Virginia Co-State Chair Jason Wilson, MD, MBA, FACS (Williamsburg, VA)
CoC Cancer Research Paper Competition
Basic Science
- First place: Divyansh Agarwal, MD, PhD (Minneapolis, MN): “An Integrin-Laminin Gradient Drives Inflammation-to-Malignancy Transition on Distal Cholangiocarcinoma”
- Second place: Suryansh, MBBS (Iowa City, IA): “Myeloid TLR4 Signaling Drives Cytokine-Mediated CD4+ T-Cell Cytotoxicity and Reduces Pancreatic Tumor Burden”
Clinical Research
- First place: Zhen Ma, PhD (Ürümqi, China): “Tumor Organoid-Guided Targeted Therapy for Locally Advanced Radioiodine-Refractory Thyroid Cancer: A Single-Center Retrospective Analysis of 38 Patients”
- Second place: Kainoa McCauley, MD, MS (Cleveland, OH): “Preoperative Geriatric Risk Factor Screening: The Association Between Positive Screening and Postoperative Clinical and Functional Outcomes After Pancreatectomy for Cancer”
- Third place: Tara Talaie, MD, MS (New York, NY): “Navigating the Waters: The Use of Navigation to Overcome Barriers to Cancer Care, An American College of Surgeons (ACS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) and National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC) Quality Improvement Collaborative (QIC)”
Medical Student Program Poster Awards
Basic Science
- First place: Jake Brooks (Columbia, MO): “Smartphone Thermal Mesenteric Angiography versus Fluorescein for Detection of Intestinal Ischemia”
- Second place: Trace Moody (Omaha, NE): “Intrapleural Fibrinolytic Therapy Reduces Complement Activation in Complex Pleural Effusions and Empyema”
Clinical Science
- First place: Paneed Jalili (Chicago, IL): “Underutilization of Adrenalectomy in Adrenal Metastatic Disease: Treatment Patterns and Opportunities for Surgical Evaluation”
- Second place: Jordan Peck (Roanoke, VA): “Post-extubation Delirium in Trauma Patients”
Education, Innovation, or Outcomes
- First place: Hana Seastedt (Maywood, IL): “Medical Students' Perception of Radiation Protection During Third-Year Surgery Clerkship: A Cross-Sectional Study”
- Second place: Jane Claeys (Chicago, IL): “Reassessing High-KDPI Kidney Utilization: One-Year Outcomes Following Biopsy-Guided Organ Selection”
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Exceptional QuickShots
- Adishesh Narahari, MD (Charlottesville, VA): “Alleviating ER Stress and Mitochondrial Injury: A Multi-Organelle Strategy to Reduce Myocardial Infarction in Mice”
- Xicheng Wei, MD (Beijing, China): “Artificial Intelligence Gastric Cancer Lymph Node Identification System Based on Deep Learning and Radiography Robot Technology: A Single-Center Randomized Controlled Trial”
- Daniel Hoffman, MD (Boston, MA): “Development and Validation of a Natural Language Processing Algorithm to Detect Social Isolation in Older Surgical Patients”
- Griffen Allen, MD (Seattle, WA): “Is the Use of Antibiotics for the Treatment of Appendicitis Really Cost Saving: A Cost Analysis of the Comparison of Outcomes of Antibiotic Drugs and Appendectomy (CODA) Trial”
- Muhammad Muntazir Khan, MD (Pittsburgh, PA): “Is There a Role for Surgery Alone in Low-Grade Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma?”
- Jorge Urbina, MD (Jacksonville, FL): “Yttrium-90 Radioembolization Downstages Unresectable Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Patients to Resection with Comparable Outcomes to Initially Resectable Disease”
- Madeline Raudat, MD (Washington, DC): “A Wireless Soft Robotic Implant Generates Functional Peristalsis in a Rat Intestinal Model”
- Lauren Tyler, MD (Dallas, TX): “The SPON2-CCND1 Axis Drives Cell Cycle Progression and Chemoresistance in Colon Cancer Peritoneal Metastasis”
- Joseph Cleveland III (Denver, CO): “Expanding the Donor Pool for High-Risk Recipients: Increased Utilization of DCD Livers to Facilitate Liver Re-Transplant in the Modern Perfusion Era”
- Shivangi Saha, MBBS (Delhi, India): “Rapid Point-of-Care Multiplex Dipstick Detection of KAPE (Klebsiella Pneumoniae, Acinetobacter Baumannii, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Enterobacter Sp) Pathogens and Antimicrobial Resistance in Burn ICU Infections: Development and Prospective Clinical Validation”
Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Excellence in Research Awards
Bariatric/Foregut
Melissa Wills, MD (Cleveland, OH): “Failure to Achieve Nutritional Independence After Bariatric Surgery Is Associated with a Five-Fold Higher Mortality”
Breast
John Lee (Fairfax, VA): “Development and Deployment of an Interpretable Machine Learning Risk Calculator for Oncologic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery”
Cardiac Surgery
Rishab Agarwal (Weddington, NC): “Acidosis during Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest Is Associated with Neurologic Injury in a Canine Model”
Colon and Rectal Surgery
Mariam Noorulhuda (Los Angeles, CA): “Approaches to Active Surveillance for Non-Operative Management in Rectal Cancer: A Multisite Study Across Diverse Care Settings”
Endocrine
Lily Owei, MD (Philadelphia, PA): “Beyond the Lateralization Threshold: Outcomes in Primary Aldosteronism with Low Adrenal Vein Sampling Lateralization Index”
Ethics
Piper Stacey (Somerville, MA): “Experience-Dependent Differences in Ethical Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence in the Operating Room: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Surgeons and Medical Students”
General Surgery
- Jayson Marwaha, MD (Stanford, CA): “Surgeon Perspectives on the Liability Landscape of Intraoperative Artificial Intelligence”
- Meghana Akula (Sanford, FL): “Risk of Colorectal Cancer Following Appendectomy”
- Theodore Bolas, MHS (Cambridge, MA): “Effect of Low Hemoglobin A1c Levels on Surgical Complication Rates”
Geriatric/Palliative Care
Daniel Hoffman, MD (Boston, MA): “Development of an Updated Research Agenda for Surgical Palliative Care: Findings from a National Expert Consensus Conference”
Global Surgery
Shahenda Khedr (New York, NY): “Life after Hysterectomy for Uterine Fibroid: Long-Term Outcomes in Rural Ghana”
Health Services Research
Geoffrey Hobika, MD (Buffalo, NY): “Predictors of Episode-Based Spending Under the CMS TEAM Model—A National Analysis of 48,000 Episodes”
Hepatobiliary and Pancreas
Stephanie Yu, MD (Phoenix, AZ): “Comparison of Bailout Rates and Outcomes in Robotic versus Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy”
Neurosurgery
Angie Jang (Chicago, IL): “Protein Arginine Deiminase 2 (PAD2) Knock-Out Preserves Perilesional Cerebral Blood Perfusion in a Murine Model of Traumatic Brain Injury”
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Kati Turner, MD (Birmingham, AL): “Fluorescence-Guided Tumor Resection using Panitumumab-IRDye800 in Ovarian Cancer Mouse Models”
Orthopaedic Surgery
Jennifer Ten Eyck, MD (Ann Arbor, MI): “Hyaluronic Acid-Deferoxamine Improves Vascularity and Healing in a Murine Model of Femoral Fracture Repair”
Pediatric Surgery
- Kelly Henige, MD (Indianapolis, IN): “Chondroitin Sulfate Improves Clinical Outcomes and Intestinal Injury in Experiment Necrotizing Enterocolitis: A Premature Piglet Study”
- Madeline Raudat, MD (Washington, DC): “Partitioned Intestinal Stent to Reduce Dysmotility and Enhance Intestinal Adaptation in Dilated Short Bowel”
Plastic/Maxillofacial Surgery
Anne-Isabelle Reme, MD (Miami, FL): “Cosmetic Surgery Complications in Miami’s High-Volume Medical Tourism Market: Implications for Patient Safety and Public Hospital Utilization”
Surgical Education
Sofia Volpi, MD (Boston, MA): “Quantifying Longitudinal Surgical Skill Progression in Residents Using AI-Based Video Analysis”
Surgical Oncology
Jason Carter, MD (Seattle, WA): “Spatial Transcriptomics Reveals Targetable Immune Niches in Fibrolamellar Carcinoma”
Transplantation & Tissue Engineering
Sarah Tsou, MD (Boston, MA): “Cellular Senescence Drives Age-Dependent Resistance to Costimulatory Blockade in Transplantation”
Urology
Gabriel Ekene Agu (Atlanta, GA): “Contemporary Validation of the Pre-Operative Renal Cell Carcinoma Inflammatory Score (RISK)”
Vascular Surgery
Chase Binion, MA (Raleigh, NC): “Estrogen-Loaded Targeted Nanoparticles Reduce Plaque Burden in an Atherosclerotic Rat Model”
