David Ginsburg, one of the nation’s leading scholars in the molecular genetics of bleeding and clotting disorders, has been selected as the University of Michigan’s 2026 Henry Russel Lecturer.
The lectureship was announced at the June 12 Board of Regents meeting. Ginsburg will deliver his lecture in the winter term of 2026.
The Henry Russel Lectureship is the university’s highest honor for senior members of its active faculty. It is awarded annually to a faculty member with exceptional achievements in research, scholarship or creative endeavors, as well as an outstanding record of distinguished teaching, mentoring and service to U-M and the wider community.
Also at the meeting, it was announced that four faculty members will receive Henry Russel Awards, the university’s highest honor for faculty members at the early to mid-career stages of their careers.
Those recipients are:
- Solomon Adera, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, College of Engineering.
- Kevin Geoffrey Field, associate professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, College of Engineering.
- Teresa Rodgers O’Meara, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, Medical School.
- Paige Sweet, assistant professor of sociology, LSA.
Ginsburg is the James V. Neel Distinguished University Professor of Internal Medicine and Genetics, the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Medicine, professor of human genetics and of pediatrics in the Medical School, and research professor in the Life Sciences Institute.
Ginsburg’s work brings together medical genetics, cutting-edge technologies and clinical medicine in unparalleled ways. Studies of the most common inherited bleeding disorder, von Willebrand disease, combined deficiency of factors V and VIII identified mutations in a novel pathway that controls the secretion of these proteins from the cells where they are produced into the blood.
This latter work led the Ginsburg lab to further exploration of the intracellular machinery controlling the secretion of a range of proteins, and the role of components of this machinery in other human disease, revealing the potential for novel approaches to the treatment of several important human disorders.
Ginsburg’s high research caliber has led him to receive some of the highest honors in his field. He has been elected by his peers to four national learned societies: the National Academy of Sciences (2007), the National Academy of Medicine (1999), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005), and the American Philosophical Society (2020).
At U-M, he was recognized in 1988 with the Jerome W. Conn Award for Distinguished Research by a Junior Faculty Member. In 1999, the Medical School bestowed on him the Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award in Biomedical Research, and in the same year, he received the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award. He was a Taubman Senior Scholar from 2011-17, and in 2014, he was inducted into the Medical School’s League of Research Excellence.
His impact has been felt not only through service on key committees, but through his research, teaching, clinical activities, mentoring and community service. For over 30 years, Ginsburg continued to see hematology, oncology and genetics patients and volunteered as an attending physician for the Homeless Shelter Medical Clinic in Ann Arbor for more than 10 years.
Ginsburg earned his B.A. in 1974 at Yale University followed by his M.D. in 1977 from Duke University. He held residencies and internships at Presbyterian Hospital in San Francisco and Peter Ben Brigham Hospital in Boston. He also held fellowships at the Harvard Medical Area Training Program in Hematology and Medical Oncology in Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital.
Ginsburg joined the U-M faculty in 1985 as assistant professor of internal medicine and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1993, he was appointed professor with tenure of internal medicine and professor of human genetics and of pediatrics and was named Warner-Lambert/Parke Davis professor of medicine in 1994. In 2002, he was appointed as a charter member of the Life Sciences Institute, and in 2003 he was named the James V. Neel Distinguished University Professor of internal medicine and human genetics.
Adera’s research focuses on fundamental studies in heat and mass transfer processes and fluid-structure interaction for energy applications. His work on enhancing condensation using engineered surfaces aims to reduce greenhouse gas emission by increasing the overall efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle in power plants.
One of the focus areas of his research uses micro/nanoengineered surfaces to overcome the major bottleneck in cooling microelectronics devices. His lab works in developing innovative and novel thermal management solutions to remove the waste heat from electronic devices including wide band gap power electronics and battery packs in electric vehicles.
Adera earned his B.S. in 2009 in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his M.S. (2012) and Ph.D. (2016) in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held a postdoctoral position at Harvard University (2016-19) and was appointed assistant professor of mechanical engineering in 2020.
Field’s research is revolutionizing how the nuclear industry enhances safety through advanced materials design and accelerated testing. His pioneering development of radiation tolerant alloys has led to the creation of innovative materials that significantly increase safety in nuclear reactors.
Implementing this technology represents a substantial advancement in mitigating the risks associated with catastrophic events, protecting both the public and the environment. He and his collaborators are also helping their innovations rapidly find use in the commercial sector.
Field earned his B.S.E. in 2007 from Michigan Technological University. He earned his M.S. (2009) and his Ph.D. (2012) in materials science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Before joining the faculty at U-M, he was an Alvin M. Weinberg Fellow and then a staff scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was appointed associate professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences in 2019.
O’Meara studies fungal pathogenesis, specifically how the fungi in the Candida family (yeast) cause disease in humans. Using genetics and evolutionary perspectives, her lab investigates species of yeast on the World Health Organization’s list of critical fungal pathogens for which there are few clinical treatments. Focusing on the natural variation in species and their basic mechanisms of colonization and disease, her work supports antifungal drug discovery.
Her work has studied the ability of Candida auris to adhere to medical surfaces and how this aids in pathogen transmission, giving rise to outbreaks. She hypothesizes that this ability to adhere is critical for Candida auris in its evolution to cause virulence.
O’Meara earned her A.B. in 2007 at the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. in 2013 at Duke University. She was a postdoctoral researcher in molecular genetics at the University of Toronto and a visiting scholar in microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. She joined the faculty at U-M as an assistant professor in microbiology and immunology in 2019.
Sweet is a sociologist of gender, violence, expertise and state apparatuses, whose groundbreaking work analyzes domestic violence as a realm structured by professional therapeutic discourses and state institutions, which impact the lives, agency and self-perceptions of women who have experienced domestic violence.
Her first book, “The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and its Aftermath,” draws on 18 months of multi-sited fieldwork, which combined participant observations in agencies working with women who have experienced domestic violence, life narrative interviews with these women, and extensive archival research.
Sweet earned her B.A. in 2009 in women and gender studies and English at Washington University in St. Louis. She earned her M.A. (2013) and her Ph.D. (2018) in sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Before joining the U-M faculty, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Inequality in America Initiative at Harvard University. She was appointed as an assistant professor in sociology in 2020.
