Robert R. Rich, M.D., senior vice president and dean of the School of Medicine at UAB, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Immunologists at its national meeting in San Diego in April 2008. Rich has been at UAB since 2004.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the association’s highest honor, recognizing a deserving member for a career of significant professional achievement, scientific contributions and service to the association.

“This is a very unexpected honor,” Rich said. “I have been fortunate to have a lengthy career where I have worked with some extraordinary people. This is a testament to them as well.”

Rich is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Immunology, the official journal of the AAI. He also is Editor-in-Chief of the comprehensive textbook Clinical Immunology: Principles and Practice, the third edition of which will be published this spring. Other appointments to editorial boards have included The Journal of Experimental Medicine, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, The Journal of Clinical Immunology and Clinical and Experimental Immunology.

Rich has been a member of two NIH study sections and on the boards of directors of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, the American Board of Internal Medicine, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and Americans for Medical Progress. He was a trustee of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International and a councilor for the American Clinical and Climatological Association and the American Association of Immunologists. He is past-president of the Clinical Immunology Society, and he also was vice president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and past chair of its Professional Education Council. He was a member of the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also is past-president and past chair of the board of directors of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Currently, Rich is on the executive committee of the boards of directors of the UAB Health System, the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation and the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, a member of the advisory panel on research of the Association of American Medical Colleges and co-chair of the panel on conflicts of interest in research of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Association of American Universities.