Rutgers School of Public Health faculty Cristine Delnevo, Ph.D., and Leslie M. Kantor, Ph.D., M.P.H., have been awarded 2022-23 Faculty Year-End Excellence Awards. Each year, these awards honor members of the Rutgers community who have been selected by their colleagues for outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and public service.
Delnevo, director of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies and professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society and Policy, has received the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research for the 2022-2023 academic year. The award is the university’s highest honor for outstanding research contributions to a discipline or to society by a tenured faculty member.
“I am honored to have been nominated and selected for this award,” said Delnevo. “It is especially meaningful to me as an alumna of Rutgers College (’89). I unwittingly began my research career as a psychology undergraduate major right here at Rutgers and worked as a research assistant for one of Dr. Richard Contrada’s doctoral students in the fall of 1988.”
Delnevo also serves as the chair of FDA’s Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee. She has held numerous R01s from the NIH, has served as an expert reviewer on two recent National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s reports focused on tobacco, and has published more than 250 scientific articles and book chapters.
Kantor, professor and chair of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health, has received the Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award. The award honors faculty, staff, and students in recognition of distinguished and non-compensated service to government bodies, professional or scholarly organizations, and/or the general public, such as voluntary community leadership, or personal acts of heroism.
“Receiving the Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award is an incredible honor,” said Kantor. “I entered the field of public health because I believed it could be an instrument of equity and social justice if the community drove priorities and solutions. That is what I have tried to do throughout my career and have been gratified to continue in my work at Rutgers.”
Since joining Rutgers in April 2018 as the inaugural chair of the Department of Urban-Global Health, Kantor has led many academic, research, and community engaged initiatives focused on increasing equity and reducing health disparities. Most recently, Kantor is working with community researchers to improve outcomes for Black mothers.
