Meet the 2025 Winner: Renda Soylemez Wiener, MD, MPH
The goal of Dr. Wiener’s work is to improve medical decision-making, by understanding how clinicians translate evidence into practice, promoting high-quality patient-clinician communication and shared decision-making, and increasing focus on patients’ experience. Her research focuses on two core areas: (1) Implementing lung cancer screening with an eye towards improving quality, equity, and patient-centeredness; and (2) De-implementing low-value, potentially harmful treatments in pulmonary and critical care medicine. Dr. Wiener has chaired or served on multiple guideline panels and professional society statements in these areas. Her body of work, including over 200 publications, is widely cited and has influenced both policy and clinical care.
Dr. Wiener first joined ATS in 2004 and is a proud member of the Behavioral Science & Health Services Research Assembly, which she chaired from 2022-24. She has served in other leadership roles for BSHSR (Nominating Committee Chair, 2024-present; Program Committee Chair, 2014-15) and for ATS (Associate Documents Editor, 2015-present; Board of Directors member, 2022-24; Awards Committee member, 2024-present; Associate Editor of Annals ATS, 2013-15). She credits BSHSR and ATS as playing a pivotal role in connecting her with like-minded scientists, leaders, and friends, with whom she has collaborated extensively and who have been invaluable to her career development. Dr. Wiener likewise is eager to “pay it forward” and is passionate about mentoring the next generation of ATS members.A pulmonologist and health services researcher, Dr. Wiener is a Professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Center for Health Optimization & Implementation Research at the VA Boston Healthcare System. She attended Harvard College (BA), Columbia P&S (MD), and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice (MPH), and completed internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian, pulmonary/critical care fellowship at Boston Medical Center, and a health services research fellowship at the White River Junction VA Outcomes Group.
Description
The award will be given to an individual who has made outstanding scientific and scholarly contributions or has provided outstanding service relevant to the behavioral or social sciences, clinical epidemiology, statistics, health services research, health economics, comparative clinical efficacy and effectiveness research, patient-centered outcomes research, performance measurement, quality improvement, or implementation science. This award is to recognize individuals who have applied these methodologies to lung diseases, critical illness, or sleep disorders, and who have made outstanding contributions to the Assembly on Behavioral Sciences and Health Services Research (BSHSR) and the ATS as a whole. Awardees will be presented with a framed certificate at the ATS International Conference.
Criteria
- Professor at an academic institution or >20 years from completing all post-doctoral or clinical training, excluding time off for personal circumstances
- Current BSHSR member (primary or secondary membership)
- Has not previously received a Lifetime Achievement award from any ATS assembly
- The submission package must include the candidate’s updated curriculum vitae and a nomination letter from an assembly member addressing the candidate’s achievements within the scored award domains.
Scoring
Applicants are scored on 6 criteria using a 1-5 rating system across the following categories: summed scores provide an overall score:
- Scientific and scholarly contributions/products
- Teaching/mentoring/educational contributions
- Participation in BSHSR Assembly activities (administrative, committees, workshops, etc.)
- Participation in other ATS activities (administrative, committees, workshops, etc.)
- Other considerations from recommendations including relevant extenuating circumstances
- Overall impact/impression of the dossier submitted for award application