AACC Elects New Leaders to Serve Terms Starting in August 2022

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AACC, a global scientific and medical professional organization dedicated to better health through laboratory medicine, is pleased to announce that Octavia Peck Palmer, PhD, FAACC, has been elected to serve on the AACC board of directors as president-elect starting in August 2022. Following this, she will serve successive terms as the association's president from August 2023-July 2024 and as past president from August 2024-July 2025. In addition, the AACC membership elected a new treasurer and two new directors to the association's board. They will take office in August 2022 along with the incoming president of AACC Academy and the incoming chair of the AACC Clinical Laboratory Scientists Council, both of whom will also serve on the board.

"I am elated that AACC's membership has elected me to serve as president-elect of the association," said Dr. Peck Palmer. "In this role, I look forward to working with AACC's leadership, staff, and members to continue to equip laboratory medicine professionals to successfully adapt to the complex challenges and greater demands in healthcare today. I strive to build upon the organization's rich history of raising public awareness of laboratory medicine; providing multifaceted educational resources; advocating for health equity; leading global outreach efforts that empower resource-limited clinical laboratories; and driving advancements in the field that improve patient care."

Dr. Peck Palmer is an associate professor of pathology, critical care medicine, and clinical and translational sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She serves as division director of clinical chemistry, and as medical director of the Presbyterian and Shadyside Hospitals and automated testing laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). She is also the assistant medical director of the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh automated testing laboratory.

An active member of AACC since 2006, Dr. Peck Palmer is currently completing a 3-year term as a member of the association's board of directors. She is chair of the AACC Health Equity and Access Division, which she founded, and chair of the AACC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She has served in many other roles within the association as well, including as a member of the organizing committee for the 2016 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo; a member of the AACC Education Core Committee; editor of the CLN Daily; and secretary of the AACC Clinical and Translational Sciences Division.

AACC TREASURER

Victoria Zhang, PhD, MBA, DABCC, FAACC, will serve as AACC treasurer from August 2022-July 2025.

Dr. Zhang is an associate professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) in New York, as well as director of the clinical chemistry division and vice chair for clinical enterprise strategy at URMC. Since joining AACC in 2009, she has served as founding chair of both the AACC Mass Spectrometry and Separation Sciences Division and the AACC Global Lab Quality Initiative Asia-Pacific Working Group. She led AACC efforts to put out practical recommendations on SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. Additionally, she has served on the AACC Science and Practice Core Committee, the AACC Finance Committee, and as a member of the organizing committee for the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo.

AACC BOARD MEMBERS

Daniel T. Holmes, MD, FRCPC, and Stanley F. Lo, PhD, will serve as members of AACC's board of directors from August 2022-July 2025. Yusheng Zhu, PhD, DABCC, FAACC, will also serve on the board from August 2022-July 2023 as president of AACC Academy, the association's home for distinguished laboratory experts who shape science in the field. Additionally, Erika Deaton-Mohney, MT(ASCP), CPP, will serve on the board from August 2022-July 2023 as chair of the Clinical Laboratory Scientists Council, which guides AACC's activities and programs to address the professional needs of AACC's clinical laboratory scientist members.

Dr. Holmes is a clinical professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia and he is head and medical director of the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. An AACC member since 2005, he currently serves on the AACC Education Core Committee and as past chair of the AACC Endocrinology Division.

Dr. Lo is a professor of pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and associate director of the clinical laboratories at Children's Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He has been an AACC member since 1994 and is currently chair of the AACC Awards Committee and chair-elect of the AACC Pediatric-Maternal Fetal Division. He has also served on the association's Nominating Committee, Education Core Committee, and as chair of the organizing committee for the 2017 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo.

AACC NOMINATING COMMITTEE

AACC's membership has also elected Carmen L. Wiley, PhD, DABCC, FAACC; Robert Fitzgerald, PhD, DABCC (CC and CT), FAACC, NRCC; and Nichole Korpi-Steiner, PhD, DABCC, FAACC, to serve from August 2022-July 2025 on the association's Nominating Committee. The AACC Nominating Committee carries out the important task of ensuring that the association's leadership comprises a diverse and highly talented group of individuals who represent the full breadth of AACC's membership.

Dr. Wiley is clinical medical director at Incyte Diagnostics and medical director of clinical labs at Providence Inland Northwest Washington in Spokane, Washington.

Dr. Fitzgerald is a professor in the department of pathology at the University of California, San Diego, where he also serves as director of the toxicology laboratory and as associate director of the clinical chemistry laboratory.

Dr. Korpi-Steiner is an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also serves as co-director of clinical chemistry and as director of special chemistry and point-of-care testing.

About AACC
Dedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, AACC brings together more than 70,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, AACC has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit www.aacc.org.

Christine DeLong
AACC
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Molly Polen
AACC
Senior Director, Communications & PR
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SOURCE AACC