Poster AwArd Submission:
Due April 15th for top overall, early career, top student. Email your PDF or PPT to DCHC@gmu.edu for consideration.
The Atkin Award selection committee and the DCHC team are pleased to announce the 2025 Atkin Award recipient, Dr. Seth Noar.
Dr. Seth Noar will receive the award in recognition of his important research concerning communication and health promotion. He currently serves as the James Howard and Hallie McLean Parker Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and is also a member of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He conducts important health communication research on the design, implementation and evaluation of health messages and campaigns. His recent work focuses on cancer prevention and control, especially tobacco prevention and control messaging. He has published more than 250 research articles and scholarly chapters, and has been a principal investigator, co-principal investigator, or co-investigator on more than $50 million in grant-funded projects from the NIH and FDA testing health communication strategies for health promotion and disease prevention. He has been repeatedly recognized as being in the top 1% most cited researchers in the social sciences. In 2016, Noar received both the Lewis Donohew and National Communication Association outstanding health communication scholar awards, and in 2017 he received the American Public Health Association’s Mayhew Derryberry Research award. In 2023, Dr. Noar was elected as a Fellow of the International Communication Association.
The Charles Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar Award was established in honor of the eminent health communication scholar, Dr. Charles (Chuck) Atkin, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 66. Dr. Atkin served as a member of the faculty in the Communication Department at Michigan State University for 41 years, where he served as Chair of the Communication Department for 15 years. His distinguished health communication research focused on public health communication policy, campaign strategies for prevention of breast cancer, risky alcohol use, and adoption of health promoting behaviors. He was the author of numerous frequently cited research articles, 4 books on media and alcohol use, edited special journal issues concerning communication and health promotion, and was called upon to advise major federal health agencies and testify before the US Congress. In 1998, he was honored with the MSU University Distinguished Professor award. He was also elected as a Fellow of the International Communication Association. His body of work clearly demonstrates the translational power of health communication research to guide informed evidence-based public health policies and practices.
The Atkin award has been bestowed at the DCHC biennial conference since 2011 to outstanding health communication scholars whose work has made important contributions to guiding health communication practices and policies. Previous Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar award recipients include:
2023, Dr. Mohan Dutta, Massey University
2021, Dr. Kami Silk, University of Delaware
2019, Dr. Michelle Miller-Day, Chapman University
2017, Dr. Jay Bernhardt, Emerson College
2015, Dr. Bradford Hesse, National Cancer Institute
2013, Dr. Linda Neuhauser, University of California at Berkeley
2011, Dr. David Gustafson, University of Wisconsin
Learn more about Dr. Noar here: https://hussman.unc.edu/people/seth-m-noar
Poster AwArd Submission:
Due April 15th for top overall, early career, top student.
CHARLES ATKIN TRANSLATIONAL SCHOLAR AWARD WINNER 2023:
Mohan Dutta, the Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication and the founding Director of the active Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at from Massey University in New Zealand has been selected to receive the 2023 Charles Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar Award. Dr. Dutta has a long history of conducting important community-based health communication research and intervention studies to promote health equity. See this brief profile about Mohan and his important work: https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=285450His keynote address during the luncheon will be titled: Culture-centered approach to transforming structures that drive health inequities: Building voice infrastructures at the global margins.
2021 WINNER KAMI SILK
The 2021 Charles Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar Award is being given this year to Dr. Kami Silk!
The distinguished health communication scholar selected to receive the award this year is Dr. Kami Silk, the Rosenberg Professor of Communication and the Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. Kami will receive this award in recognition for her outstanding long-term program of community-based health communication research and intervention work that addresses important health risks in society.
It is most fitting that Kami will receive the Atkin Award given her long history of working closely with Dr. Charles Atkin at Michigan State University on important projects that made significant contributions to society. Perhaps their most impressive collaborative work is a series of evidence-based health communication studies conducted as part of the innovative NIH-funded translational Breast Cancer and the Environment (BCERP) transdisciplinary and translational research program designed to help prevent the onset of breast cancer.
BIO:
Associate Dean of Research and Director of Master’s of Health and Risk Communications, Professor, Appointment with AgBioResearch
Kami Silk, (Ph.D., University of Georgia) was appointed as Rosenberg Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware in the Fall of 2018. She previously served as the Sr. Associate Dean for Research in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and Professor in the Department of Communication and AgBioResearch at Michigan State University. Dr. Silk is a health communication researcher who investigates how to communicate effectively to promote positive health outcomes among the lay public. Her most recent work has focused on social norms and persuasive message design across the health issues of breast cancer risk reduction, suicide prevention, and improving nutritional practices among adolescent mothers for obesity reduction among infants. Her research has been published in the Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior, and Health Promotion & Practice. Dr. Silk is a researcher with the Breast Cancer and Environment Research where she has served as the PI of three projects and as a Co-I of another project. Her BCERP work includes communication science research and outreach activities to educate girls, parents, and pediatric health care providers about the links between the environment and breast cancer.
DR. MICHELLE MILLER-DAY
We 
are pleased to announce that Dr. Michelle Miller-Day has been selected (among a very competitive group of nominees) to receive the 2019 Charles Atkin Outstanding Translational Health Communication Scholar Award at the upcoming DC Health Communication (DCHC) conference to be held in Fairfax, Virginia at the beautiful Hyatt Regency at Fair Lakes Hotel and Conference Center on April 25-27. The Atkin Award (named after the influential health communication scholar Dr. Charles Atkin from Michigan State University) is given to an eminent health communication scholar who has made major contributions to health communication research, practice, and policy.
Dr. Miller-Day is a Professor of Communication Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. She is an expert in developing evidence-based health promotion communication campaigns, including co-directing with (Dr. Michael Hecht) a large National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA-NIH) funded project for over 20 years that is one of the most successful evidence-based substance abuse prevention programs in the United States. This impressive health communication program has reached and influenced more than two million youth worldwide!
Past distinguished recipients of the Charles Atkin Outstanding Translational Health Communication Scholar Award include: Dr. David Gustafson (2011), University of Wisconsin, Dr. Linda Neuhauser (2013), University of California Berkeley, Dr. Bradford Hesse (2015), National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Jay Bernhardt (2017), University of Texas.