Awards Given at the Global Conference
Congratulations to Our Award Winners!
Each year the ILA is pleased to honor both those who have made significant lifetime achievements to the study and practice of leadership and those who are just beginning their career in the field of leadership. Find out how to submit your work for an award at the ILA 2023 Global Conference or to congratulate awardees as they are announced!
Awardees all play a special role at the conference, whether it is taking the plenary stage, participating in a spotlighted concurrent session, or being honored at a special event.
Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
ILA’s Leadership Legacy Program honors individuals who have made a significant lifetime contribution to the field of leadership through their published works and influential support of leadership knowledge and practice. Each honoree is presented with ILA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and has their work celebrated at our annual global conference. After the conference, recipients are added to the ILA Virtual Hall of Fame. To view all of our past Lifetime Achievement Award winners, visit ILA’s website.
Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, is a member of the Stó:lō First Nation and has kinship in St’at’imc First Nation in British Columbia, Canada. Over a 45-year educational career, Q’um Q’um Xiiem has served as a school teacher, curriculum developer, researcher, author, university leader and professor. She is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Education, University of British Columba (UBC). At UBC, she held the leadership positions of Director of the First Nations House of Learning, Associate Dean for Indigenous Education, and the Director of UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program. She received a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree from UBC, a Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree from Simon Fraser University. Q’um Q’um Xiiem’s scholarship relates to Indigenous knowledge systems, storywork/oral tradition, transformative education at all levels, Indigenous educational history, teacher and graduate education, and Indigenous methodologies. Q’um Q’um Xiiem has been involved with numerous Indigenous national and international research and educational networks, policy engagement, and capacity building initiatives. In 2018, Q’um Q’um Xiiem, was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for her lifelong contributions to advancing Indigenous education in K-12 and post-secondary education through policy, programs, curricula, and research.
Dr. Avolio is the Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership within the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. In the Foster School, he also serves as the Executive Director for the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking. He is recognized as being among the top 70 most highly cited researchers in the United States in Economics and Business, and among the top 3,000 across all sciences around the globe (Thompson Reuters). He was listed recently at the #18th spot on the all-time most highly cited industrial and organizational psychology researchers over the last 100 years, and # 3 as the most highly cited author in the top OB textbooks used in both undergraduate and graduate programs. This past year Dr. Avolio was recognized as being in the top .02% of all of scientists globally for his research impact and citations by Stanford University.
Bruce has published 12 books and over 150 articles on leadership and areas related to development, transformation, and organizational change/effectiveness. In 2012, Bruce was identified as being in the top 25 management scholars over the last 50 years in terms of scholarly citations of his work, which now total nearly 200,000 in 2023. In 2017, Bruce was recognized as being among the top 70 most highly cited researchers in the United States in Economics and Business, and among the top 3,000 across all sciences around the globe (Thompson Reuters). This past year, he was listed in the #18 spot on the all-time most highly cited industrial and organizational psychology researchers over the last 100 years and the #19 spot on the Worldwide list of the top 50 scholars in Business and Management and within the top .02% by Stanford University in 2023.
Bruce has consulted with hundreds of organizations around the globe in Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, in the design and delivery of transformative leadership development systems. His research and consulting include projects with the militaries and governments of the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Sweden, Finland, Israel, Germany, Japan, Korea, Austria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
In terms of other distinguished accomplishments, Bruce has been awarded fellowship status in the American Psychological Association, The Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology, The National Academy of Management Association and The International Association of Applied Psychology. He has also served as the Chair of the Organizational Behavior Division of the National Academy of Management and the President of the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation.
Over his career, Dr. Avolio has received over 10 million dollars in external funding from the Army Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Education, NSF, NIH, the VA Healthcare System, the Kellogg Foundation, the Ludus Foundation, The Gallup Organization, the State Farm Foundation, Booze, Allen Hamilton, Alaska Airlines, National Correctional Services of both the U.S. and Canada, in addition to funding with corporate projects from around the globe.
Multiple award-winning executive educator and author whose teaching and research interests span the globe, Dr. Mansour Javidan received his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota. He is Garvin Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. He is a former Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Leadership Association. Mansour is former President of the world-renowned research project on national culture and leadership, titled GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness, globeproject.com) and is currently Project Director and Principal Co-Investigator of GLOBE 2020, working with a team of 426 researchers studying culture change, leadership ideals, and trust dynamics. The project has received close to $2.0 million in funding and has completed data collection from over 50000 managers and professionals in 144 countries. Mansour received the Decade’s Best Paper Award by the Academy of Management Perspectives. He is recognized as among the top 100 most influential authors in Organization Behavior in the world and among the top 2% most cited scientists in the field of business and management in the world. The World Bank and the United Nations Development Program have designated Dr. Javidan an expert advisor on Global Leadership. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has designated him an expert on managing diversity. Mansour has designed and taught executive development courses and workshops, conducted consulting projects, and made presentations in over 35 countries.
Multiple award-winning executive educator and author whose teaching and research interests span the globe, Dr. Mansour Javidan received his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota. He is the Garvin Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
Mansour is the Past President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the world-renowned research project on national culture and leadership, titled GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness, globeproject.com). He is a coeditor of the 2004 GLOBE book, which won the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) “M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in The Workplace”. He is also a coauthor of the latest GLOBE book, published in August, 2014 which received the 2015 University of San Diego and International Leadership Association (ILA) leadership book award for “Scholarly Rigor and Critical Thought.”
Mansour is currently the Project Director and Principal Co-Investigator of GLOBE 2020, working with a team of 426 researchers studying culture change, leadership ideals, and trust dynamics. The project has received close to $2.0 million in funding and has completed data collection from over 50000 managers and professionals in 144 countries. Mansour’s article on global leadership recently received the Decade’s Best Paper Award (2006- 2016) by the Academy of Management Perspectives. Dr. Javidan was recently recognized as among the top 100 most influential (i.e., top 0.6%) authors in Organization Behavior in the world. He is also recognized as among the top 2% most cited scientists in the field of business and management in the world.
The World Bank and the United Nations Development Program have designated Dr. Javidan an expert advisor on Global Leadership. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has designated him an expert on managing diversity, and the U.S. Army has designated him a Senior Research Fellow. He recently stepped down as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Leadership Association. He has designed and taught executive development courses and workshops, conducted consulting projects, and made presentations in over 35 countries. His list of clients includes NASA, Abbott Labs, Accenture, U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Marshals Service, Aditya Birla, Alstom, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Statoil, BAE Systems, Bank Mandiri, BP, Cisco, Coachlear, Johnsosn & Johnson, Chevron, Telcom Indonesia, ExxonMobil, Commerzbank, Dell Computers, Scotiabank, Metlife, Europharma, MAGNA, Merck, Dow Chemical, Huawai, McCormick, SABIC, and Novartis.
His publications have appeared in such journals as Harvard Business Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Perspectives, Leadership Quarterly, Management International Review, Organizational Dynamics, Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences, Human Relations, Journal of World Business, and Journal of Organizational Change Management.
A proven academic, Dr. Javidan took a four-year sabbatical from his university teachings to work with the CEO of TransCanada PipeLines, a multi-billion-dollar energy company. Dr. Javidan was instrumental in helping the CEO develop new directions and strategies, and facilitate cultural change within the company and its pipeline business. He was directly involved in the acquisition of a $15 billion corporation, at the time the largest such merger in Canada. The merger resulted in the formation of the fourth largest energy services company in the world. He established a process for new business development that involved over 200 employees throughout the company and produced new business ideas estimated to produce $50 million in net after tax earnings.
Dr. Javidan is the Past Senior Editor, Global Leadership, for the Journal of World Business. He also served a three-year term on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Perspectives. He is currently on the editorial boards of Management and Business Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Organizational Dynamics, and American Journal of Engineering and Technology Management. He was elected a Fellow of the Pan Pacific Business Association and was named in Lexington’s Millennium Edition of the North American Who’s Who Registry, Empire’s 2019 Who’s Who Registry, and Grey House Publishing’s 2022 Canadian Who’s Who Registry.
Sonia M. Ospina is Professor of Public Management and Policy, at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She is the former Faculty Director of the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA). Her present academic interests include collective leadership and democratic governance, both in the U.S. and Latin America. She became a leadership scholar by directing a multi-year, national research project that invited 92 U.S. social change organizations to coproduce new knowledge about leadership and social transformation. The resulting practitioner leadership stories, pedagogical cases, peer-reviewed journal articles and other publications theorized collective leadership, identified social change leadership practices, and explored the relationship between race and leadership, among other contributions. Sonia grew up in urban Bogotá, and worked in the education field until returning to the U.S. where she was born to Colombian parents. She has lived with her family for 34 years in another great urban space, New York City. Sonia’s bi-cultural experience and strong ties to both countries are embodied in her transnational and multicultural approach to life. She has a PhD in Sociology, an MS in Policy and Management from SUNY at Stony Brook and a BA in Education and Social Sciences from Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.
Sonia M. Ospina is a Professor of Public Management and Policy at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, a sociologist by training, and an expert in participatory and qualitative research methods. Her interests in the participatory, inclusive, and collaborative dynamics of democratic governance have produced research on social change leadership, engaged scholarship, social innovation, public accountability, and public sector reform, both in the United States and in Latin America. She holds a BA in Education and Social Sciences from Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia), an M.S. in Policy Analysis and Public Management, from the W. Averell Harriman School for Management and Policy, and a PhD in Sociology from the Sociology Department at Stony Brook University, a SUNY campus.
Born in the U.S. to Colombian parents, Sonia grew up in urban Bogotá, where she got her BA and worked in this education field for several years until her return to the US. She has now lived more than half her life in another great urban space, New York City, where she and her husband raised their son. Sonia’s bi-cultural experience and her strong ties to both countries are embodied in her transnational and multicultural approach to life.
During her 34 years as an academic, Professor Ospina has enjoyed and cultivated spaces of collaboration with researchers from around the world, having co-authored articles and book chapters with colleagues from (as close as) the US and Central and Latin American countries, and (as far as) Australia and New Zealand, Korea, the UK, Spain, and Italy, among others. Her most recent collaborative projects include participation in two scholarly groups to develop insights on collective leadership and collaborative governance: The Global Action Research Institute for Indigenous Women Leaders (with colleagues from Universidad del Rosario, Colombia); and the International Working Group for Collaborative Governance (with colleagues from the Basque Country’s Provincial Council of Gipúzcoa and the Basque Country University, Spain). She has also has had the privilege of mentoring and learning from many students who passed through her courses–Leadership and Social Transformation; Qualitative Research Seminar; and Cross Sector Partnerships–including the eleven doctoral students whose dissertation she chaired and other ten who invited her to join their dissertation committee.
Professor Ospina is co-founder and Co-Director of the Colombian Studies Initiative since 2019 (in partnership with Universidad del Rosario); she co-founded the international network of leadership scholars, Co-Lead Net in 2015 and the Research Center for Leadership in Action in 2003, where she served as Faculty Co-Director until 2015. She is an elected Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration, a member of the Scientific Council of CLAD, a UN consulting body on state reform in Latin America, and just finished her tenure as a Board member of the Public Management Research Association (PMRA). She also served as President of the Inter-American Network of Public Administration Education (INPAE) (2008-2010), and earlier, in the Boards of the two other prime public management and policy associations, NASPAA and APPAM.
Professor Ospina has published in the prime leadership journals, the Leadership Quarterly and Leadership, as well as in the prime public management journals, including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Public Administration Review. She has also held editorial responsibilities in these journals, as well as in other nine domestic and Latin American journals. Her latest books are Advancing Relational Leadership Research: A Conversation Across Perspectives (2012, co-edited with Mary Uhl-Bien); Social Innovation and Democratic Leadership: Communities and Social Change from Below (2017, co-authored with Marc Parés and Joan Subirats); and The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry, Volumes 1 and 2 (2021, co-edited with Danny Burns and Jo Howard). In 2020 she co-edited a Human Relations Special Issue, Collective dimensions of leadership: Connecting theory and method, with Erica Foldy, Gail Fairhurst and Brad Jackson.
Overtime, she has been a consultant and adviser in international institutions including the Organization of American States, the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Latin American Regional Center for Learning and Evaluation Research; she has been involved in multi-year projects with The Ford Foundation, the Colombian Consulate in New York, the National Department of Planning, Government of Colombia; the NYC Office of the Mayor, and the New York City Department of Sanitation; and she has also advised academic programs at the Brazilian National School of Public Administration ENAP and in other prestigious universities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile.
Professor Ospina was the recipient of the 2022 Keith Provan Award from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management, given to distinguished Public Administration scholars whose impact is interdisciplinary and integrates literature from across perspectives; substantially builds both theory and empirical approaches; and makes a unique and identifiable contribution to knowledge in public administration research.
Distinguished Leadership Award
This award is presented to individuals whose contribution to the understanding of and/or practice of effective leadership are significant and have resulted in extraordinary impact which transcends national boundaries. Recipients bestowed the Distinguished Leadership Award serve as inspiring examples to all who labor to make positive change in this world.
The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., served as Chief Justice of Canada from 2000 to mid-December 2017. In June 2018 she was appointed to the Order of Canada as a recipient of its highest accolade, Companion of the Order of Canada. She works in ADR as a bilingual Member Arbitrator and Mediator in Canada and internationally, using her experience and skill in leading and consensus-building for many years as the head of a diverse nine-member court.
The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., C.C., CStJ, served as Chief Justice of Canada from 2000 to mid-December 2017. In June 2018, she was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest accolade. She works in ADR as a bilingual arbitrator and mediator in Canada and internationally.
She was first appointed to the bench in 1981. By 1989, Canada’s Prime Minister elevated her to be a Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. During her 28 years on the Supreme Court of Canada, she helped decide a wide variety of common law and civil law disputes in both French
and English. Her tenure as Chief Justice was the longest in Canadian history; the Office of Chief Justice of Canada also involves a seat on Canada’s Privy Council. In addition to English and French, she also has basic proficiency in German.
Her international appointments include ad hoc and institutional arbitrations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the United States and Australia. The cases have been a mix of common and civil law disputes.
The 2,094 Supreme Court of Canada judgments in which she participated—of which she wrote 442—and her legal writings and speaking include a wide range of subjects in corporate, construction, financial services, taxation, contract, tort, IT, patent, copyright, other areas of business law, as well as arbitration and mediation. Her legal texts include co-authorship of the first, second and third editions (1987, 1994 and 2020) of The Canadian Law of Architecture and Engineering. It is generally recognized that the judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada during her tenure have affirmed Canada as a jurisdiction that is very supportive of arbitration.
She has received over 35 honorary degrees from universities in Canada and abroad, and numerous other honours and awards.
Ms. McLachlin also sits as a Justice of Singapore’s International Commercial Court and the Hong Kong Final Court of Appeal.
Fredric M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award
Michael Goldfien, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, National Security Affairs, U.S. Naval War College; Ph.D. from Department of Political Science, Yale University
Winner to Be Announced Shortly!
Submission Deadline: 15 June 2023
The ILA is pleased to partner with the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond on the Fredric M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award. This award is given annually to a scholar whose doctoral dissertation research, while on any topic and from any discipline, demonstrates substantial insights and implications for the study of leadership. The award was established to honor and celebrate the life of Dr. Fredric M. Jablin (1952-2004). Recipients are honored during the conference and invited to give a talk on their work at ILA’s global conference. To view all of our Jablin Dissertation Award winners, visit ILA’s website.
In Vancouver, Goldfien will present on his chapter, “Hawks, Doves, and Regime Type in International Rivalry and Rapprochement.” Existing scholarship emphasizes hawks’ advantages in making peace but is squarely focused on democratic leaders, even though most prominent international rivalries feature at least one autocracy. He argues that regime type moderates the relationship between foreign policy orientation and peace: doves should be more successful peacemakers in autocracies than democracies. In low-accountability autocracies where domestic audiences struggle to punish leaders, the credibility problem doves face in selling peace at home becomes less salient relative to doves’ motivation to cooperate internationally. After formalizing the argument in a two-level model of rapprochement, Goldfien demonstrates that the predicted patterns holds in a large-N set of post-World War II cases. He concludes by examining two key cases of rapprochement that demonstrate the theorized mechanisms: the U.S.-Soviet and Egypt-Israel rivalries. The theory explains why it could take a hawk like Nixon to go to Beijing, but a dove like Gorbachev to come to Washington.
Note: * These views are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of the U.S. Navy or any other organization with which the author is affiliated. *
Michael Goldfien is an assistant professor in the National Security Affairs department at the U.S. Naval War College. His research focuses on leadership and the politics of diplomacy at the international and domestic levels. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Security Studies, and the Journal of Politics, among other outlets . He holds a Ph.D. in political science with distinction from Yale University, an M.A. in international policy from Stanford University, and a B.A. in international relations from Grinnell College.
The Kenneth E. Clark Student Research Award
Now accepting submissions
Submission Deadline: 5:00 p.m. EDT, on Monday, 15 May 2023
The current research advances a novel and increasingly common form of allyship that can lend itself to moral hypocrisy and has important consequences for employees and organizations. I break new ground by proposing performative allyship, in which organizational leaders publicly tout their solidarity with equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) issues but withhold actual support (i.e., “saying one thing but doing nothing”). Nine (plus one supplemental) preregistered studies using recall in the field, scenarios, behavioral games, and qualitative questions reveal that populations facing disadvantages from race, gender, sexual orientation, or indigenous status evaluate leaders who exhibit performative allyship as hypocritical, self-serving, and image-managing about their moral virtues. Specifically, performative allies can be judged virtually as negatively as those who disregard allyship and consistently show no ally actions. The negative evaluations of performative allies lead to moral outrage and higher minority turnover. On a positive side, attributing performative allyship as hypocrisy ignites moral outrage, and therefore simultaneously motivates minority employees to advocate for social change, representing a silver lining to this dark side allyship phenomenon. By integrating the four-stage moral judgment and decision making model and deonance theory, this research contributes to allyship theory and literature from a morality and justice lens, with profound practical implications for organizational diversity practice.
Hsuan-Che (Brad) Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Division at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. His research program broadly focuses on morality, organizational justice, conflict management, and culture and diversity. Specifically, some of his current work addresses how third parties moralize others’ forgiving behavior amid workplace conflicts and how pretentious leaders signal their own virtuous moral compass by professing to be an ally in support of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in organizations.
Coming from an interdisciplinary background, he holds a B.S. in Psychology (Summa Cum Laude) and Life Science, with two Certificates in Neurobiology and Cognitive Science and Psychology Research, from National Taiwan University. Beyond academics, he has been engaged in community volunteering work and transferred his research on conflict and forgiveness to society for a better, peaceful world. Anecdotally, he was a gamer and winner of several esports tournaments prior to his Ph.D.
SAGE Most Publishable Leadership Education Paper
2023 Award Winning Paper: Understanding “Leadergogy” — The Unique Teaching and Learning Methods in a Leader Development Course
Yes, Leadergogy! While similar to pedagogy and andragogy, Leadergogy is more focused on how adult leaders learn about leadership. Leadership development is a prominent concern for all organizations, but how leaders step into the role of leadership, learn, and develop leadership within the classroom remains largely under studied. This paper explains how our research resulted in a new leadership development learning method — Leadergogy — emerging from the USAF Leader Development Course for Squadron Command (LDC). Interested in determining what learning experiences contributed to higher perceptions of student learning, researchers qualitatively analyzed student comments in end-of-course surveys from 15 iterations of the 8-day LDC in AY21 (n=889) and three iterations of the LDC-Command Modules in AY21 (n=165). Five themes emerged: connection, content, delivery, environment, and experience. These five elements, when taken together, form the foundation of a more comprehensive method of teaching and learning for lifelong, adult learners by honoring students’ life experiences and embracing a more shared, democratic approach to teaching and learning. At its heart, Leadergogy aims to craft a meaningful student experience by creating connection before content to foster psychological safety and personal growth, content relevancy, and effective delivery, placing students in an affective state conducive to greater learning and an environment whereby trust, authenticity, and vulnerability emerge to enhance shared learning from peers and instructors.
John M. Hinck, Assistant Professor, Leadership and Innovation Institute, Air University
Steven B. Davis, Assistant Professor, Leadership and Innovation Institute, Air University
Robert Hinck, Associate Professor of Leadership, Air University
Sara Kitsch, Assistant Professor of Leadership, Air University
Derrick Iwanenko, Vice Commandant, Officer Training School, United States Air Force
Bios and Pictures Forthcoming.
The Russell G. Mawby “People Helping People” Award
The ILA is pleased to partner with the Alliance of Leadership Fellows (ALF) on The Russell G. Mawby “People Helping People” Award, which was presented during the closing awards luncheon at the conference.
Russell G. Mawby, an ILA 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, served as Chairman and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) for many years. Under his leadership the foundation dramatically grew in size and influence in the U.S. and around the world. Mawby was an extraordinary leader of the Foundation and steward of the vision and values of its founder. He steered the Foundation’s programming toward leadership, philanthropy & volunteerism, and minority populations while maintaining topical foci of health, agriculture, and education. His leadership in the field of philanthropy is globally known and umbrella organizations, like the Michigan Nonprofit Association, which he helped found, are nationally recognized models for effective philanthropy.
Mawby’s legacy is not only the thousands of lives that he touched directly as a leader, but the hundreds of thousands he touched by supporting the work and development of the next generations of leaders through initiatives like The Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP), an innovative leadership development program that was an early seed in what would become the International Leadership Association.
The Russell G. Mawby “People Helping People Award” is given in his honor every other year to an individual leader or to their organization in recognition of ongoing contributions to the health and wellbeing of communities. The 2023 award focuses on contributions that lead to more secure health opportunities for children and families in the areas of public health, health equity, or community service.
2023 Award Recipients
Dr. Chandra L. Ford received her PhD in Health Behavior from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Social Medicine (at UNC School of Medicine) and Epidemiology (at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health). Much of her work is dedicated to studying the impacts of racism and inequities on public health and supporting interdisciplinary research to prevent and combat the consequences of racism. She is lead editor of Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional, which was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title of 2020 by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine. She is also the founding director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health at UCLA. A dynamic and in-demand speaker, teacher and author, Ford’s contributions to public scholarship are profound. Her eminence has been recognized by a number of accolades, including: the 2020 Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Women Physicians; a TrueHero Award from TruEvolution; and the 2019 Paul Cornely Award. In 2023, Dr. Ford joined the faculty at Emory University, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Behavioral, Social and Health Education Sciences at the Rollins School of Public Health.
Dr. Edward O’Neil Jr earned his M.D. from George Washington University and completed a residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center. In 1998, he founded Omni-Med, (www.omnimed.org) which has run programs in Belize, Guyana, and Kenya. Omni Med has partnered with the Ugandan Ministry of Health and US Peace Corps to develop an innovative health service program in Uganda, which has trained over 1200 community health workers since 1998. Dr. O’Neil is the author of two highly acclaimed books published by the American Medical Association, Awakening Hippocrates: A Primer on Health, Poverty, and Global Service, and A Practical Guide to Global Health Service. Since April 2007, Dr. O’Neil has served as Chair of a Brookings Institution Taskforce on Health Service in Sub-Saharan Africa. His practice of leadership and his practical application of knowledge to the health challenges of individuals and communities led to his being named to the Advisory Board of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at the University of Maryland. His contributions have also been recognized by both The Brookings Institution and the United Center for Citizen Diplomacy. In addition to serving as the Medical Director of Omni Med, Dr. O’Neil is a practicing emergency physician at Steward St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, and an
Larraine Matusak Courageous Leadership Award
In honor of Larraine’s life and work, the ILA is partnering with the The Alliance of Leadership Fellows to present the 2021 Larraine R. Matusak Courageous Leadership Award.
The Larraine R. Matusak Courageous Leadership Award was created in 2007 and is given biannually to recognize bold and courageous leadership in the face of social difficulty and injustice. In the words of Dr. Matusak . . . . . .
The purpose of this award is to recognize and reward those individuals who boldly take a risk to stand up for what is right and just; who work for the common good; who are willing to take an unpopular stand even if doing so may jeopardize their jobs, cast them in an unpopular light or even cause them to lose friends. They are willing to act authentically and speak up when silence would mean colluding with the problem, and they boldly take actions that tangibly improve the human condition.
Courageous Leadership is defined as the ability and passion to attain positive results by encouraging others and by working with and through others to achieve a common good. True leaders are courageous people. They are not afraid to take a risk and they don’t waste much time worrying about what other people might think of them; they are more concerned about doing what is right and effective. They make every attempt to weave a shared vision, to align others toward a goal, and then with enthusiasm, energy, and commitment they are willing to walk near the edge and even do things that raise the eyebrows of those around them in order to achieve a positive goal that effects the common good…. to do what is right! Their risk taking is creative, reinforced by sound judgment, common sense and a profound sense of responsibility, honesty and truth.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must look fear in the face and do the thing you think you cannot do.” This Courageous Leadership Award is a call to courage that requires a belief in something much larger than the individual; the type of courage fueled by a passion for the common good and a commitment to principles greater than self-interest; the kind of courage that once exhibited galvanizes others.