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2026 Annual Meeting Honorees


Congratulations to our 2026 Annual Meeting honorees, including research competition winners, award recipients, grant recipients, and Centers of Excellence designees! Below is a summary in case you missed the awards ceremony. We encourage you to share congratulations on social media using #SOAPAM2026.


Gertie Marx Research Competition

  • First Place: Payton Marshall, MD, PhD, Stanford University
  • Second Place: Lily Y. Bai, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • Third Place: Susanna Oster, BS, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Best Research Paper Competition

  • Anuradha Baishnob, HBSc, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Best Case Reports Competition (Top 10)

  • Jace R. Battrell, MD, MSMP - Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
  • Daniel F. Berenson, MD, PhD - Mass General Brigham
  • Manuel A. Fierro, MD - Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Spencer Hansen - George Washington University
  • Fatine Karkri, MD - Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Momoko Kobayashi - Saitama Medical Center
  • Eliezer Mendelev, MD - The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
  • Allison Mootz, MD - UT Southwestern Medical Center
  • Makela Stankey, MD - Stanford Health Care
  • Lucas Steele, MD - The Ohio State University

Award Recipients
Distinguished Service Award: Mark Zakowski, MD, FASA - Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Mentoring Excellence Award - Daniel Katz, MD - Mount Sinai Hospital/Icahn School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Teacher of the Year Award (More than 10 Years): Pervez Sultan, MD, FRCA, MbChB - Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Teacher of the Year Award (Less than 10 Years): Sharon Reale, MD - Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
Diversity & Inclusivity Award: Kokila Thenuwara, MD - University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Research in Education: Lei Man Kuan, MD, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Frederick P. Zuspan Award: Braydon Bak, MB, BCh, BAO, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
SOAP & Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) Patient Safety Award: Daniel F. Berenson, MD, PhD - Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
SOAP/Kybele International Outreach Grant

  • Cassandra Poirier - University of British Columbia
  • Elana Kreiger-Benson, MD - Brigham & Women's Hospital

Diversity & Inclusivity Mentored Grant 

  • Kyeisha Laurence, BS & Bushra Taha, MD- Harvard University
  • Caroline Thomas, MD & Paloma Toledo, MD, MPH, FASA - University of Chicago & University of Miami

Center of Excellence Designees
The Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) is pleased to announce the following institutions and obstetric anesthesia programs have attained the prestigious SOAP Center of Excellence (COE) designation:

  1. Danbury Hospital - Danbury, CT, USA
  2. Emory University at Grady Memorial Hospital - Atlanta, GA, USA
  3. Emory University Hospital Midtown - Atlanta, GA, USA
  4. Lenox Hill Hospital - New York, NY, USA
  5. Pavilion for Women Texas Children's Hospital Won's Center North Austin - Cedar Park, TX, USA
  6. Saint Mark's Hospital - Millcreek, UT, USA
  7. San Giovanni Hospital - EOC Switzerland - Bellinzona, Canton Ticina, Switzerland
  8. University of California, Irvine - Orange, CA, USA
  9. Wexford Hospital, Allegheny Health Network - Wexford, PA, USA

The following institutions and obstetric anesthesia programs have renewed the prestigious SOAP Center of Excellence (COE) designation initially granted in 2021:

  1. Baylor College of Medicine - Houston, TX, USA
  2. Kitasato University Hospital - Sagamihara City, Kanagawa, Japan
  3. Memorial Hermann Hospital - Texas Medical Center - Houston, TX, USA
  4. Parkland Hospital Center - UT Southwestern - Dallas, TX, USA
  5. Pro Matre Paulista - Groupo Santa Joana - Sao Paulo, Brazil
  6. University of Colorado - Aurora, CO, USA