Taubman Scholar Kathleen Collins, MD, PhD, has been awarded a 2022 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award by U-M’s Rackham Graduate School.
Each year, five faculty members from throughout the university are selected for the award, which honors senior faculty who have consistently demonstrated outstanding achievements in scholarly research and/or creative endeavors, have a record of sustained excellence in teaching and mentoring of students and junior colleagues, and, through service and other professional activities, have brought distinction to themselves and to the University of Michigan.
Dr. Collins is a renowned physician-scientist whose research has advanced the understanding of why human immunodeficiency virus causes persistent lifelong infection and the disease AIDS.
She serves Michigan Medicine as a professor of internal medicine and of microbiology and immunology, associate dean for physician scientist education and training, and director of the Medical Scientist Training Program.
Her accomplishments over the past two decades in HIV/AIDS research have established her as a preeminent researcher, scholar, educator, mentor and international thought leader in this area of biomedical research. Dr. Collins’ work focuses on how to counter the immuno-evasive effects of HIV accessory proteins to provide better treatments for people infected with HIV.
A member of the U-M faculty since 1998, Dr. Collins promotes diversity, equity and inclusion through her efforts on the American Society of Clinical Investigation’s DEI committee, and via direct mentoring. For these efforts, she was an invited speaker at the National Institutes of Health Bridging the Gap Seminar in 2019, held at the 14th Biennial Bridging the Career Gap Workshop: Promoting Diversity in Biomedical Research. She was selected to be a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine in 2016. In 2019, she was chosen to be the editor in chief of the ASCI journal JCI Insight for a five-year term.
