Emily Parker, a fourth-year medical student from Johnston, Iowa, didn’t anticipate developing a passion for research during medical school. However, her experience playing Division I women’s basketball at the College of the Holy Cross and while navigating injuries piqued her interest in sports medicine.

Competition and camaraderie were on full display as more than 200 University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine students turned out for the fifth annual Carver Black and Gold Mile Run Sept. 25 at the university’s Francis X. Cretzmeyer Track.

Caleb Escudero, a second-year medical student from Aurora, Illinois, had never participated in research until the summer before he started medical school. He quickly learned that he loved the scientific process of discovering new solutions to complicated problems—such as the common problem of childhood ear infections.

For Adam and Camille Rasmussen, moving to Iowa City was a step out of their comfort zone, but they trusted the great things they had heard about the PA program at the Carver College of Medicine.

George Li did not always know he wanted to become a PA, but this career path became apparent as his interest in science grew along with his desire to serve his community. After graduating from Boston University in 2014 with a degree in linguistics, Li explored various career paths including education and programming. He valued the people-focused approach he developed while teaching and the problem-solving aspects of programming; he found that health care was a good intersection.

A new study that used genetic data from nearly 43,000 autistic individuals and their families has identified 60 autism spectrum-associated genes with exome-wide significance, including five new genes not previously implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Debby Tsuang (83BS, 88MD, 92MS, 92R–psychiatry) has made critical contributions to the understanding of dementia and related disorders through her research on their genetic, clinical, and neuropathological underpinnings. Tsuang’s cutting-edge studies of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) have informed its clinical classification and treatment by highlighting the role that behavioral disorders play in DLB. She is committed to compassionate clinical care for socioeconomically vulnerable populations. Her passion for helping aging veterans has influenced much of her research, and she has expanded telehealth options at the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System to increase rural veterans’ access to care. She has also achieved the distinction of being both the first woman and the first non‐white person to serve as director of the VA Puget Sound GRECC.

James Christensen (64R–­­gastroenterology) is an internationally recognized physician, scholar, and scientist responsible for major contributions to the understanding and management of gastrointestinal tract diseases. He provided the first explanation of the motions of the human esophagus in swallowing, proved the existence of the lower esophageal sphincter, and discovered the pacemaker cells of the colon. Christensen became the first director of the Division of Gastroenterology in the Carver College of Medicine in 1971, serving there for 17 years and concurrently as the director of the division’s National Institutes of Health academic training program. Christensen received the Janssen Award for Lifetime Achievement in Gastrointestinal Motility from the American Gastroenterological Association in 1997. He has been a University of Iowa professor emeritus of internal medicine since his retirement in 1998.

Alireza Shamshirsaz (09R–obstetrics and gynecology) ranks among the world’s foremost experts in fetal surgery and in the treatment of abnormally adherent placenta, a rare pregnancy complication also known as placenta accreta spectrum. He has pioneered novel surgical techniques for neural tube defects and twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and he was part of the team that performed the first successful fetoscopic repair to treat spina bifida in the U.S. Shamshirsaz is board certified in OB-GYN and maternal fetal medicine and an appointed reviewer of 22 medical journals. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts in English language journals and 18 in Farsi. Shamshirsaz serves as director of the Maternal Fetal Medicine Care Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School.

Jeremy Cauwels’ (02MD) leadership and advocacy have redefined the patient experience at Sanford Health System, the nation’s largest rural nonprofit health care system. He was recognized as a leader early in his career when, after completing his internal medicine residency at the University of Kansas Medical School in 2005, he was selected to lead the program the following year. In 2014, he became the director of the hospitalist program at Sanford, where he doubled the size of the program. Now as chief physician at Sanford, his colleagues look to him as a role model of patient-focused care.