University of Michigan associate professors April Zeoli and Monica Dus have made far-reaching impacts through their work in firearm safety and supporting the U.S. Navy on science and education, respectively, and are recipients of the 2024 presidential awards for public engagement.
The awards recognize the recipients’ demonstrated commitment to public service, contributions to significantly impact society through national and state leadership, and efforts to address the challenges communities face every day.
President Santa J. Ono presented the awards to Zeoli and Dus at a dinner in their honor at the President’s Residence on March 31.
Zeoli, associate professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health, is receiving the President’s Award for Public Impact. She is the nation’s leading expert on policy interventions for firearm use in intimate partner violence. Her research on that topic has been used to close the “boyfriend loophole” in domestic violence firearm restriction laws.
“Dr. Zeoli has been instrumental in providing evidence-based testimony and research expertise to lawmakers in Lansing and Washington, D.C.,” wrote her nominators. “It is rare and special for academic researchers to be able to have the kind of direct and clear impact on public policy that Dr. April Zeoli has had.”
Dus, associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology in LSA, is receiving the President’s Award for National and State Leadership. She assisted the Secretary of the Navy as a White House Fellow in 2023-24, contributing to education and training initiatives within the Naval University System and the submarine industrial base, science and technology strategy, and force resiliency, for which she was recognized with the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award.
“Her strategic insight and adaptability directly supported national security objectives and showcased her remarkable ability to unite diverse teams under a common mission,” Dus’ nominators wrote. “Her ability to tackle national challenges with vision and rigor while fostering collaboration across sectors exemplifies the values and mission of the University of Michigan.”
Zeoli also serves as the director of the policy core in the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.
“Winning this award is validating for a number of reasons. When we work in the field of firearm violence prevention, the public doesn’t always appreciate your work,” Zeoli said. “But it is incredibly important to take our research out of the paywall journals and into the public. The reason I do this research is to improve the lives of people in the state of Michigan and, more broadly, in the United States.”
Zeoli first became interested in intimate partner violence in the 1990s when she was an undergrad at U-M and some of her female friends were being affected by it. She remembered thinking “something has to be done to stop this.” She asked herself what she was going to do and ended up in public health studying violence prevention.
“Guns are used in the majority of intimate partner homicides. If you remove the gun, then it’s much less likely that there will be a death. And so I started doing research around that,” she said. “Now, in addition to intimate partner firearm violence and firearm laws, I engage in homicide and suicide work, mostly around extreme risk protection order laws.”
Zeoli was the principal investigator on the largest study to date of extreme risk protection order, or red flag, laws in the U.S. Her research focused on more than 6,600 case files covering six states. That work led to the Michigan firearm safety laws passed in 2023 that include the red flag, safe storage, updated background check and domestic violence misdemeanor firearm possession ban laws.
Zeoli will soon start as director of the Michigan Firearm Law Implementation Program to make sure that law enforcement, judges, health care organizations, domestic violence service organizations and suicide prevention organizations are aware of the new laws and how to implement them.
“We have a lot of plans and a lot of work to do that will make citizens of Michigan safer,” she said.
Zeoli was nominated for the award by:
- Denise Anthony, Rubin Department Chair and professor of health management and policy in SPH, professor of sociology in LSA, and professor of information in the School of Information.
- DuBois Bowman, Roderick Joseph Little Collegiate Professor of Public Health, professor of biostatistics, and dean of the School of Public Health.
- Patrick Carter, professor of emergency medicine in the Medical School, and professor of health behavior and health equity in SPH and co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.
- Marc Zimmerman, Marshall H. Becker Collegiate Professor of Public Health, professor of health behavior and health equity in SPH, professor of psychology in LSA, and co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.
Dus, who is director of the Office of National Labs in the Office of the Vice President of Research, has hosted her own podcast (“How to Science”), written for The Conversation, and collaborated with the U-M Museum of Natural History on a comic book (Sugar Buzz). For her, public engagement is second nature.
“I always felt that it was important to be a scientist in the world, to be civically and publicly engaged. Science doesn’t stop with my office or with our buildings, and it’s really important to bring it into the world and to bring the world into science,” Dus said. “And the University of Michigan is a really amazing place to do that.”
Her experience working with the U.S. Navy on expanding educational opportunities through the U.S. Naval Community College for its enlisted will help broaden their career choices.
“It’s a great investment for the people and for the services, too,” she said. “They started with a small project of just a few thousand sailors, but in the next few years they are going to expand that to 20,000.”
Those nominating Dus included:
- Arthur Lupia, interim vice president for research, Gerald R. Ford Distinguished University Professor of Political Science and professor of political science in LSA, and research professor in the Center for Political Studies.
- Brad Orr, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, professor of physics in LSA, and associate vice president for natural sciences and engineering.
- David Singer, professor of naval architecture and marine engineering in the College of Engineering.
- Carlos Del Toro, 78th U.S. Secretary of the Navy.
- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland and founder of Georgetown University’s Center for Retirement Initiatives.
- Franklin Parker, the 19th assistant Secretary of the Navy.
- Steve Brock, senior adviser to the Secretary of the Navy.
Dus said that receiving the public engagement award means so much to her because she values this work as much as her scholarship.
“And so that the university has an award for this means they value it. That is really incredible because I don’t think that’s necessarily a common thing within academia,” she said. “And so it makes me extra proud to be a Wolverine.”
