Pace to be honored with 2023 Woman in Science Award

Betty Pace, MD, Francis J. Tedesco Distinguished Chair of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Medical College of Georgia and the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University, is the recipient of the American Medical Women’s Association’s 2023 Woman in Science Award.

Pace will receive her award during the 108th AMWA Annual Meeting from March 23-26 in Philadelphia.

AMWA’s Woman in Science Award honors a woman physician who has made exceptional contributions to medical science, especially in women’s health, through her basic and/or clinical research, publications and leadership in her field.

Pace, who joined the MCG faculty in 2010, leads a National Institutes of Health-funded basic/translational research laboratory focused on drug discovery for treatment of sickle cell disease. She served as director of the Pediatric Sickle Cell Program until 2021, providing medical services for 600 children.

She has trained more than 100 young scientists and she directs the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute-funded Program to Increase Diversity for Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research, or PRIDE, a mentored research program that pairs young scientists and seasoned researchers with the goal of helping junior faculty learn what it takes to advance their careers. More than 112 junior faculty members from 50 institutions have completed the PRIDE program, helping to expand diversity of the nation’s biomedical science workforce.

Pace received her medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1981 and trained in pediatric hematology/oncology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.