Watkins Endowed Chair

Diana Wilkins, PhD

Diana Wilkins, PhD is the 2021-2024 recipient of the C. Scott and Dorothy E. Watkins Endowed Chair in Honor of Ernst J. Eichwald, MD. The Watkins Endowed Chair was established in 1999 to promote research and education within the Department of Pathology. Dr. Wilkins, a graduate of the University of Utah, completed a Clinical Laboratory Internship at ARUP and received her doctorate in Research Design and Statistics emphasis. Dr. Wilkins first came to the Department of Pathology as an Adjunct Professor in 2013, and then full professor in 2014. Dr. Wilkins was appointed the Division Chief of Medical Laboratory Sciences in 2017. Her significant contributions to education are complimented by her administrative and leadership contributions. Dr. Wilkins has been actively engaged in numerous research and scholarly activities while at the University of Utah. Her research interests include the disposition of selected xenobiotics in biological matrices, mechanism underlying tolerance to methamphetamine neurotoxicity, and protein adduct biomarkers of hepatotoxicity. Most recently, her research has focused on the effect(s) of exposure to cannabinoids during pregnancy and pre-term birth. With research funding from NIDA, NCI, NICHD, USADA, and industry sponsors, she has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications since joining the University of Utah.

Annual Faculty Awards

Every year, the Department of Pathology recognizes four faculty members for exceptional contributions in the areas of anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, experimental pathology, and education. The awards are named in honor of four of our most beloved and respected former colleagues: Joseph Holden, MD, William Roberts, PhD, John Weis, PhD, and Joseph Knight, MD, each of whom now remain with us through the impact they had on our lives.

The following faculty members have recently been named as the annual winners for 2021 in recognition of their achievements. Congratulations to each of the winners!

Joe Knight Award for Excellence in Education

Karen Moser, MD

Dr. Moser is deeply involved in education for our medical students and pathology residents and fellows. In undergraduate medical education she serves as a course director for the Molecules, Cells, and Cancer unit for first-year medical students. This is an intensive 8-week unit that integrates molecular and cell biology with genetics, hematology, cancer biology and basic oncology.

As a pathologist leader in the medical school curriculum, she is active in MedEdMorphosis, the current effort to refresh and unify the medical education program and more fully realize the exceptional learning experience at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is currently leading a team that incorporates current medical students into the process of curricular re-design.

Dr. Moser also directs PATH 7020, our elective rotation in clinical pathology at ARUP for 3rd or 4th year medical students. These students are seeking core exposure to clinical pathology, which can be very limited at other medical schools, and most PATH 7020 rotators eventually apply to our pathology residency program. She is the rotation director for hemostasis/thrombosis rotations for residents and fellows and also works closely with residents and fellows on our hematopathology services.

Dr. Moser’s contributions are an important part of the visibility of pathology in our medical school curriculum, the local pipeline into pathology, and the training of our current residents and fellows. She is incredibly smart but also has a natural gift for sharing knowledge with others. She follows strong guiding principles and helps other to develop their professional identifies. She is an all-around star!

Joe Holden Award for Excellence in Anatomic Pathology

Elke Jarboe, MD

Dr. Elke Jarboe is a star among the anatomic pathologists at the University of Utah and highly deserving of the Joe Holden Award recognizing faculty excellence in Anatomic Pathology.

Many people don’t realize that Elke started out her career in a clinical pathology discipline, microbiology, receiving both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology at the University of Colorado. She stayed on for her medical school and residency training and was a proud post-sophomore pathology fellow at the University of Colorado. It was during her medical training that she found her true passion was instead in anatomic pathology and specifically in gynecologic pathology. Elke completed two highly prestigious fellowships in women’s and perinatal pathology and then cytopathology at Harvard University’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The University of Utah was extremely fortunate to have attracted her to join our ranks after these 13 years of exceptional training. In 2008 she joined the Anatomic Pathology Division and has continued to garner many awards and accolades, including the prestigious Robert E. Scully Young Investigator Award in gynecological pathology in 2009, as only a first year Assistant Professor at that time. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2016. Her publications have had wide-ranging impacts in gynecologic pathology and cytopathology.

She is perhaps best known for her seminal and ground-breaking series of six publications that established the fallopian tube as the origin of serous carcinogenesis of the gynecological tract, a discovery that has changed clinical practice and our understanding of this devastating cancer. Dr. Jarboe has been a cherished educator by medical students, residents, and fellows alike, and an outstanding administrator as the 14-year Director of Gynecological Pathology and the 10-year Director of the Cytopathology Fellowship at the University of Utah. We heartily congratulate Dr. Elke Jarboe for her exceptional career and the 2021 Joe Holden Award for Faculty Excellence in Anatomic Pathology.

Bill Roberts Award for Excellence in Laboratory Medicine

Robert Blaylock, MD

Dr. Robert (Rob) Blaylock received his medical degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine. He performed his residency in Clinical Pathology and his fellowship in Transfusion Medicine also at the University of Utah. He is currently a Professor of Pathology in our department.

For almost 25 years, Dr. Blaylock was the single medical director over transfusion medicine services for University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospitals. Under his leadership, the ARUP’s Blood Donor Service Center was created and became a world-class blood donor center that has facilitated the donation and processing of millions of blood products that have been used to treat and save the lives of thousands of patients in our region.

Dr. Blaylock is known as one of the medical directors who is the most dedicated to patient care in the history of the department and ARUP. We are honored and proud to have Dr. Blaylock be a part of the long list of successful and dedicated clinical pathologists in our department.

John Weis Award for Excellence in Experimental Pathology

June Round, PhD

Dr. June Round joined our faculty in Utah in 2011 after obtaining her BS from California Lutheran Institute, her MS from the University of Pacific in Molecular Biology, and her PhD from UCLA. Later, she completed a postdoc at Cal Tech with Sarkis Mazmanian.

She was named a Pew Scholar in 2013, awarded a DP2 innovators award from the NIH in 2014, and a Burrough’s Wellcome Investigator in Pathogenesis in 2017. In 2020, Dr. Round received the first Keck award that the U has received in 20 years. She also achieved a truly spectacular run of grants in 2020: an R01 on bacteriophage pathobiology of inflammatory bowel disease; another R01 on the mechanisms of fungal involvement during intestinal disease, a third on microbiota-immune interactions that promote intestinal homeostasis; and an R21 on microbiota pancreas interactions during cancer.

Her success in grant funding is also reflected in her success with publications including an article in Nature in August of this year. While Dr. Round’s work is indicative of an outstanding researcher, perhaps her greatest achievement was reached with the birth of her daughter Capri this past summer.