Pictured: UH-JABSOM Professor and Kalani High School graduate Dr. Marjorie Mau receives award recognizing her work and service to the community by Creighton University President the Rev. Daniel Hendrickson on Sept. 15.

From Creighton University News Release and UH Med Now Staff
OMAHA, Neb. (Sept. 18, 2017) – Marjorie K. Leimomi Mala Mau, BS’81, MD’85, was awarded the Creighton University Alumni Merit Award during homecoming festivities on Sept. 15, 2017.

Dr. Mau, one of only three women to receive the alumni merit award in the school’s history, was also asked to deliver a keynote lecture on Public Participation in Research to Address Health Disparities.

Mau is professor and founding chair of the Department of Native Hawaiian Health at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. The first Native Hawaiian woman board-certified in both endocrinology and internal medicine, Mau is also the first woman to be selected as a master in the American College of Physicians in the state of Hawai’i. She is currently director of research in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health and is principal investigator of multiple grants at the University of Hawai’i, where she has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the last 25 years.

The Award received by Dr. Mau from Creighton University

Mau’s enthusiasm for health disparities research, with a special emphasis on diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity, along with her advocacy for engaging diverse communities in the biomedical process and mentoring the next generation of emerging investigators reflect her commitments to public health awareness. She has widely broadcast her mission, caring for patients in rural communities on Molokaʻi as well as in urban Honolulu, Oʻahu, and served as the medical officer on Hokule’a, the iconic traditional voyaging canoe in the Pacific. She is the inaugural holder of the Myron “Pinky” Thompson Endowed Chair for Native Hawaiian Health Research, and earned the National Kidney Foundation Medical Professional of the Year 2002 and selection as an NIH Biomedical Faces of Science (2009-2013).

Winners of the Alumni Merit Award have distinguished themselves through service to the University and to his or her community in a way reflective of Creighton’s mission and values. The honorees have also established themselves as of high moral principles guided by the Jesuit ideals of being men and women for others. Dr. Mau graduated from Creighton University’s medical school in 1985.

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