NIH’ers Win Flemming Awards
Two NIH’ers are among the 12 public servants who will be honored at the 72nd annual Arthur S. Flemming Awards. Winners are recognized for performing outstanding service in the fields of applied science and engineering, basic science, leadership and management, legal achievement and social science.
NHLBI’s Dr. Keir C. Neuman and NIDA’s Dr. Tisha R. Wiley are NIH’s 2020 Flemming Award recipients.
For more than 70 years, the awards have celebrated stellar employees with 3 to 15 years of federal government service. Recipients are nominated by their federal agencies, selected through a competitive judging process and presented by the Arthur S. Flemming Commission in partnership with the George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration.
In the basic science category, Neuman, chief of the Single Molecule Biophysics Laboratory, was cited “for the development of innovative technology enabling pioneering studies of the structural dynamics of twisted (also known as supercoiled) DNA and topoisomerases, the essential enzymes that control DNA supercoiling and preserve genome integrity in cells. He has perfected physics-based approaches and built unique instrumentation to control individual DNA molecules with unprecedented precision. His research has provided novel insights and resolved longstanding questions concerning essential mechanisms of topoisomerases, the inhibition of topoisomerases by anticancer chemotherapeutic agents and fundamental aspects of DNA topology.”
In the social science category, Wiley, chief of the Services Research Branch and associate director for justice systems, was recognized as “the primary architect of the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), an ambitious initiative that seeks to address the drug overdose crisis by reimagining the way the justice system responds to addiction. JCOIN builds linkages between scientists at academic centers and justice systems—jails, prisons, probation/parole, drug courts, juvenile justice and similar settings—so that policy and practice innovations can be rapidly launched and rigorously tested. JCOIN’s focus is provision of evidence-based opioid treatment services to individuals as they transition from the justice system to the community.”
Established in 1948, the award is named after Arthur Sherwood Flemming, a distinguished government official who served seven presidential administrations, most notably as secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under President Dwight Eisenhower.