The results of this year’s Faculty-to-Faculty Awards have been announced. The award recipients, who were named in August, included Mark Schauer, MD, FACP, Peter Vollbrecht, PhD, Maritza Lagos-Saez, MD, and Shamsi Berry, PhD.
The Faculty-to-Faculty Awards, which are handed out by the medical school’s Office of Faculty Affairs, recognize faculty who were nominated by their peers for significant professional achievements, as well as contributions and service to WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) and the wider community.
Dr. Schauer, associate professor in the Department of Medicine, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes a faculty member who is nearing retirement and who has made significant contributions to one or more areas of WMed.
In separate letters nominating Dr. Schauer for the Lifetime Achievement Award, Karen Horneffer-Ginter, PhD, clinical associate professor in the Department of Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law; Mark Loehrke, MD, associate professor emeritus in the Department of Medicine; Vitaliy Voytenko, PsyD, associate professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law, and assistant program director for the Psychiatry residency program, as well as four faculty members from the Department of Medicine – Drs. Joanne Baker, Susan Bannon, Ross Driscoll, and Theo Gomes – noted the profound impact Dr. Schauer has had during a career in Kalamazoo that has spanned more than 40 years.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work with Dr. Mark Schauer for 46 years,” Dr. Loehrke said. “I have firsthand watched his evolution from medical student to resident to clinician to super faculty member. He has impacted Internal Medicine in Kalamazoo more than almost any other physician that I can think of in the last 41 years. He is a model of excellence and an inspiration to those who work with him.”
Dr. Voytenko applauded Dr. Schauer for a career built on the ideals of excellence, health equity, compassion, and service. He has worked tirelessly in his training and mentorship of students and residents at WMed and its predecessors – Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies (MSU/KCMS) and the Southwest Michigan Area Health Education Center (SMAHEC), Dr. Voytenko said.
“Yet what most distinguishes Dr. Schauer … is best seen at the Firehouse Clinic, WMed’s free clinic serving Kalamazoo’s unhoused population,” Dr. Voytenko said. “Medical students who have worked alongside him there describe encounters they will carry throughout their careers. One student recounted an evening when Dr. Schauer’s shift had already ended and a homeless woman walked in off the street.
“Without hesitation, he stayed,” Dr. Voytenko added. “He sat with her on the floor, took her hand, and gave her his full attention and compassion – not as a transaction but as one human being to another. For a student still learning what medicine means, witnessing that moment was transformative. This is the kind of teaching that no curriculum can prescribe and no lecture can replicate.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Vollbrecht, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, received the Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes a faculty member who has provided significant service to WMed, the community, and the medical community at the local, regional, national, and international levels.
Dr. Vollbrecht was nominated for the award by David Riddle, PhD, professor emeritus in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, who served as department chair and assistant dean for Foundations of Medicine before his retirement in June 2026. In 2025, Dr. Riddle was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award during that year’s Faculty-to-Faculty Awards.
In his nomination letter, Dr. Riddle compiled an impressive list of Dr. Vollbrecht’s accomplishments at WMed, as well as the impact he has had outside of the medical school and Southwest Michigan since coming to Kalamazoo in 2018.
Dr. Riddle noted Dr. Vollbrecht’s contributions to the pre-clerkship medical curriculum and his work as co-director of the medical school’s Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences degree program.
“This program represents a critical component of our institutional efforts to promote the recruitment and success of medical students from groups historically underrepresented in medicine, a goal that is central to WMed’s vision and mission to promote health equity,” Dr. Riddle said.
Outside of WMed, Dr. Vollbrecht started the Brain Explorers outreach program for local middle schoolers and his passion for pathway and bridge programs has “encouraged individuals across the country who are working to provide opportunities for those who are underserved and underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM),” Dr. Riddle said.
Additionally, Dr. Vollbrecht has been extensively involved with the Association of STEMM Pathway & Bridge Programs (ASPBP) as a founding member and now as president-elect, helped found the Global Neuroanatomy Network in 2021, and began a community of practice focused on Community, Outreach, Research & Engagement (CORE) that is now part of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) as a Community of Growth (CoG), among other accomplishments.
“Dr. Vollbrecht clearly has contributed greatly to the establishment and continuation of highly valued advocacy and outreach programs here at WMed,” Dr. Riddle said. “In addition, he has contributed significant scholarly works within the field of pathway and bridge programs and supported the work of others within this field in a manner that truly is outstanding.”
Dr. Lagos-Saez, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and Dr. Berry, vice chair and associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, received the Hal B. Jenson, MD Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award (Clinical) and the Hal B. Jenson, MD Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award (Non-Clinical), respectively. The awards recognize a faculty member whose work exemplifies the mission and values of WMed.
In her letter nominating Dr. Lagos-Saez, Madhavi Latha Nagalla, MD, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and program director for the Psychiatry residency program, said Dr. Lagos-Saez, who completed her psychiatry residency training at MSU/KCMS in 2003, has built a reputation as an excellent teacher with an unwavering commitment to medical education. She served as medical student clerkship director for Psychiatry for several years and Dr. Nagalla said Dr. Lagos-Saez is a dedicated core faculty member within the residency program who has been named the recipient of the resident-voted Faculty Teaching Award on three separate occasions.
“Among residents, she is consistently one of the most sought after attendings for both clinical and individual supervision, reflecting her exceptional teaching skills, approachability, and clinical expertise,” Dr. Nagalla said. “She is a thoughtful and skilled clinician who seamlessly integrates brief psychotherapeutic interventions into her routine clinical practice. Through her work, she models this increasingly rare yet invaluable skill with clarity and excellence for both residents and medical students.”
In his letter nominating Dr. Berry, Philip Kroth, MD, chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, associate dean for Health Services Research, and professor in the departments of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine, said that hiring Dr. Berry five years ago “has probably been the best decision I have made as chair.”
During her time at the medical school, Dr. Berry has established herself as a committed and productive faculty member who has averaged three publications and three grant applications annually and has been funded by four extramural grants in that time, Dr. Kroth said.
In addition to that work, Dr. Berry is leading the development of an applied doctorate in health informatics program at WMed and has become a respected leader who currently serves as chair of the medical school’s Faculty Academic Council and is a member of several committees both at WMed and at the state and national level.
“Most importantly, Dr. Berry is an outstanding teacher,” Dr. Kroth said. “To watch her design a curriculum and teach it is like watching a master craftsman create a work of art. She seems to really be able to see the curriculum from the students' perspective in a way that very effectively informs the choice of curricular design and its delivery to make her classes efficient, effective, and fun. She seems to constantly be coming up with new and imaginative ways to deliver our informatics curriculum using novel approaches.”