School’s Top Award Honors Experts’ Contributions

In October 2024, SMPH Dean Robert N. Golden, MD, presented Belzer Awards to Paul Harari, MD, Howard Bailey, MD (PG ’90, ’92), and Thomas Grist, MD, who have advanced the school’s missions through their expertise in important fields, including radiation oncology, medical oncology, radiology and medical physics. Collectively, they have served with distinction as strong and impactful leaders; passionate advocates; inspirational mentors; and visionary program builders.

Named in honor of Folkert O. Belzer, MD — the transformational chair of the Department of Surgery and co-inventor of the “UW Solution,” which helped revolutionize organ transplantation — the award was created more than 25 years ago to honor the school’s most exceptional leaders who have had a major impact on the school and on academic medicine.

“Each of these game-changing leaders are outstanding clinicians; renowned researchers; deeply respected teachers and mentors; and effective leaders,” said SMPH Dean Robert N. Golden, MD, upon presenting the awards on October 28, 2024. “They each moved a key component of our school from ‘really good’ to ‘really great’ over their long tenure as leaders.”

Paul Harari, MD

Harari is a leader in radiation oncology, but as a teen, he dreamed of working on a different field — the kind with bases, a pitcher’s mound and green grass. A lifelong New York Yankees fan, Harari was pitching for his alma mater, Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, when he tore his rotator cuff.

His baseball career was over, but Harari soon found himself embarking on a vocational path that he ultimately found more rewarding. Rather than squaring off against an opponent in the batter’s box, Harari took on a more implacable foe: cancer.

Raised in New York, New Hampshire, and Colorado, Harari loved anything relating to the human cell. He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia and completed an internal medicine internship at the University of California, Davis. There, Harari became intrigued with radiation oncology and developed an interest in head and neck cancers, such as those affecting the voice box, mouth, throat and sinuses.

When it came time to find his first faculty position after his residency at the University of Arizona Medical Center, Harari saw tremendous opportunity at UW–Madison.

“University of Wisconsin–Madison was a spectacular place for a new faculty member to spread their wings,” says Harari, who joined the SMPH faculty in 1990. “One of my first priorities was to establish a multidisciplinary head and neck tumor board. This allows experts from all cancer disciplines — surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology and others — to thoroughly review each patient’s case before commencing treatment. Rather than viewing cases through a single lens, the board provides expert input from all relevant cancer disciplines to develop the most balanced, state-of-the-art treatment recommendation for the patient. This tumor board remains a central pillar of our head and neck cancer program 34 years later.”

In his research laboratory, Harari became intrigued with combining radiation with various anti-cancer drugs to improve patients’ outcomes. He was a co-leader of the landmark Phase III trial showing a survival benefit for head and neck cancer patients who were treated with radiation and the drug cetuximab. Published in 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the trial remains the most-cited paper in head and neck oncology.

Milestones as Chair

With a growing reputation for his enterprising research and compassionate patient care, Harari was selected in 2007 as chair of the Department of Human Oncology, a position he held until mid-2024. During his tenure as chair, the department reached several milestones, including:

• Doubling the number of faculty members
• Increasing the number of female faculty members from two to 15
• Tripling the amount of federal cancer research support
• Ranking among the nation’s top eight radiation oncology departments in the United States, based on research dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Launching — in 2016, with colleague Deric Wheeler, PhD ’04 — the Badger Challenge, a community-wide bike/run/walk event that has attracted 3,500 participants annually and raised $4.6 million to support research at the UW Carbone Cancer Center
• Championing creation of a UW Health facility for proton beam therapy; scheduled to open in early 2026 in the recently constructed Eastpark Medical Center, the facility will provide unparalleled precision in the delivery of radiation therapy

Harari, who in 2018 served as president of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, also has been the principal investigator for two successive NIH-funded Specialized Program of Research Excellence grants, known as SPORE grants, worth $27 million. These funds have underwritten several translational and clinical trial initiatives designed to achieve improved outcomes for patients with head and neck cancers.

Work-Life Balance

Early in his career, it was not unusual for Harari and his peers to work up to 70 or 80 hours a week. As a husband and father of four, Harari understood the strain this took on his family. When he became chair, he did not want the next generation of faculty physician-scientists to pay such a heavy price for success.

“It is not healthy or sustainable for them to routinely work 80 hours a week,” he says.

It is a clear reflection of Harari’s values that the Department of Human Oncology consistently ranks highly in professional satisfaction and low in professional burnout.

Zachary Morris, MD, PhD (PG ’16), who in 2024 succeeded Harari as chair of the Department of Human Oncology, remembers feeling conflicted about wanting to coach his children’s Little League games.

“I remember feeling sheepish talking about this to Paul at first,” Morris says. “I was grateful when he encouraged me to do these things. That only drove me to work harder because I was not missing out on special times with my kids.”

Colleagues and mentees across the United States are grateful to Harari for his wise, empathetic and generous counsel. Among them, Daphne Haas-Kogan, MD, MBA — chair of radiation oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital, and chief of radiation oncology at Mass General Brigham — never hesitates to reach out to Harari.

“Paul is often the first person I call when I’m struggling with a major career or work-life decision,” Haas-Kogan says. “He will listen carefully, understand my perspective and infuse me with the confidence I needed to make a difficult decision.”

Harari was honored with the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 2024 Gold Medal Award, the organization’s highest honor, bestowed upon revered members who have made outstanding contributions to radiation oncology.

“Recognition from peers in the field you love is gratifying,” Harari says. “This award reflects my good fortune to have had inspirational mentors and outstanding institutions at which to learn, practice medicine, perform research and gain leadership skills.”

Howard Bailey, MD (PG ’90, ’92)

As a teenager, Bailey did not envision himself becoming the head of anything, much less becoming director of the UW Carbone Cancer Center — one of the nation’s most distinguished academic cancer centers and among the first comprehensive cancer centers funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

A farm kid from Wyndmere, North Dakota (population 450), Bailey is a first-generation college student who did not think about medicine as a career until his first year at the University of North Dakota (UND). In 1981, he was admitted to the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences, becoming only the second person from his hometown to go to medical school.

“I was not a great student in general, but I enjoyed the sciences and studying the human body,” Bailey recalls.

Before earning his medical degree, Bailey had an epiphany that would chart his professional course for 40 years.

“I remember this elderly patient with a very aggressive cancer,” he says. “Her caregivers were doing everything they could to get her ready for one last car ride so she could see the fall harvest, and the nobility of it all really struck me. This heavily influenced my decision to specialize in oncology.”

After completing an internal medicine residency at Southwestern Michigan Area Health Education Center in Kalamazoo, Bailey says he was thrilled when SMPH took him on as a medical oncology fellow in 1988.

“Typically, pedigree matters, and on paper, I wasn’t much,” he admits. “Some places where I applied hardly gave me the time of day. Coming to UW–Madison was a great opportunity, and this is where my passion for research and patient care blossomed.”

Bailey and his wife expected to leave Madison once he completed the medical oncology fellowship and a subsequent research fellowship, but a faculty vacancy presented Bailey with an unexpected opportunity. With encouragement from Paul P. Carbone, MD — the namesake of today’s cancer center — Bailey applied for and got the position.

Bailey’s clinical and translational research has focused on the development of new agents that treat disease more effectively and help prevent cancer, resulting in near continuous funding from the NCI for  more than 30 years.

“The Carbone Cancer Center was one of the country’s first purveyors of chemoprevention clinical trials,” says Bailey, a former chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer Prevention Committee. “This work played a pivotal role in the evolution of vaccines to prevent human papillomavirus and breast cancer. It also helped identify beneficial anti-cancer aspects of green tea, pomegranate, resveratrol and flavopiridol.”

Empathy and Compassion

As a clinician, Bailey immediately sensed the importance of sensitivity and empathy when caring for patients with chronic, often life-threatening diseases.

“When you are sitting down to tell someone they are going to die, whether they are 19 or 90, it is essential to do that with utmost compassion,” Bailey says. “I wanted to learn to get it right.”

Bailey’s clinic days often run late because he wants to give each patient as much time as warranted.

“If a patient needs two hours, they get two hours,” he says. “Even if it is my 20th appointment that day, it is always the first for the patient.”

Renee Gray, a 13-year survivor of ovarian cancer from McFarland, Wisconsin, says Bailey never forgets that a cancer patient is a person with a disease, not the disease itself.

“He is a human being who cares for other human beings,” says Gray, whose late husband, Aaron Gray, died in 1998 from a rare cancer at age 34. “Dr. Bailey not only cared so compassionately for Aaron, but he was so kind to my children and me. He reminds you of the saying that you remember a person above all because of how they make you feel.”

Since being named director of the UW Carbone Cancer Center in 2015, Bailey has routinely tapped into the talent surrounding him, from colleagues to staff, community supporters and volunteers.

“Howard has an endearing quality of empowering others and making them feel that they are truly making a difference,” says Tim Cleary, chair, UW Carbone Cancer Center Advisory Board.

Sports-Legend Support

Among those who have helped Bailey enhance the UW Carbone Cancer Center’s brand and triple the annual amount of money raised through philanthropy are two Wisconsin sports legends: two-time U.S. Open golf champion Andy North and UW Badgers Men’s Basketball Coach Greg Gard.

“We don’t always appreciate what an incredible cancer research powerhouse lies in our backyard,” says North, who with his wife Susan North, have spearheaded the Andy North and Friends initiative since 2009.

The initiative, which has raised more than $18 million for the UW Carbone Cancer Center, has paid off many times over.

“Because of federal grant support, every dollar we raise turns into $12 to $15 that supports cancer research right here, and Howard has been a big part of that,” says Andy North.

Coach Gard and his wife, Michelle Gard, got to know Bailey shortly after the coach’s father, Glen Gard, was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor in 2015.

“Howard was immensely helpful during my dad’s treatment,” Greg Gard says. “We knew it was an uphill battle, which he ultimately lost, but Howard made himself available to us for support whenever we needed it.”

With tremendous gratitude for Bailey and his colleagues, the Gards decided to give back by launching the Garding Against Cancer initiative, which includes events in Madison and throughout Wisconsin. Their efforts have raised more than $9 million for UW Carbone Cancer Center since 2016.

“Michelle and I were both born and raised here, so we wanted to impact people across the state. My dad was all about helping your neighbor, and having Howard’s strong support helped make Garding Against Cancer successful,” says Greg Gard.

With retirement in his plans, Bailey — with his wife and two grown children — looks back on his 36 years in Madison with tremendous pride.

“Howard always maintains a great work-life balance,” says Mark Albertini, MD (PG ’87, ’91), one of Bailey’s longtime colleagues and friends. “It has been such a pleasure working alongside him for nearly four decades. I look forward to spending more time with Howard as he begins the next chapter of his life.”

Thomas Grist, MD

If there was a genetic marker for innovative craftsmanship, Thomas Grist, MD, would test positive. His great-grandfather, who built the house in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Grist was raised, invented the automatic pop-up toaster. His father invented a special welding technique used to build the lunar-landing module that allowed Apollo astronauts to walk on the moon more than 50 years ago.

As for Grist, a faculty member in the SMPH Departments of Radiology and Medical Physics since the early 1990s, his body of work has significantly touched the lives of millions of patients around the world.

Grist’s fascination with medicine began in middle school while learning about Christiaan Barnard, MD, a South African heart surgeon and medical innovator best known for performing the world’s first heart transplant in 1967.

“The way he combined medicine and engineering intrigued me,” Grist recalls.

Grist studied biomedical engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and spent his college summers working up the road at the Waukesha facilities of GE Medical Systems, now GE HealthCare.

“I was one of the first seven engineers at GE HealthCare to work on a promising technology we now know as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),” Grist says. “MRI was transformational because it gave us a much more detailed look at tumors or injuries within the body’s soft tissues compared to previous methods. We did not have that kind of information on an X-ray. MRI enabled us to diagnose diseases in places like the brain, heart or pancreas without using ionizing radiation. MRI is widely viewed as one of the greatest medical discoveries of the 20th century, and before long, GE HealthCare became one of the industry’s pioneers in developing and manufacturing MRI scanners.”

Pioneer in Magnetic Resonance Applications

After completing his radiology residency at Duke University, Grist joined the SMPH faculty in 1991. He worked closely with two mentors — Charles Mistretta, PhD, and Patrick Turski, MD, FACR, now emeritus professors — to develop a non-invasive approach, called magnetic resonance angiography, for visualizing blood vessels. For patients, this breakthrough avoids the need to undergo more invasive catheterization or angiogram procedures. Instead, detailed imagery of blood vessels is achieved simply through an intravenous infusion of a contrast dye.

Throughout more than three decades at the SMPH — including serving as chair of the Department of Radiology from 2005 to 2023 — Grist has played a pivotal role in the development of multiple MRI applications, including a form of magnetic resonance angiography called 3D TRICKS (time-resolved imaging of contrast kinetics).

“Essentially, TRICKS tracks a patient’s blood flow during an MRI procedure,” Grist says. “It creates multiple, three-dimensional images of blood vessels so we can quickly and precisely visualize physiology and disease.”

Former UW–Madison Chancellor John Wiley, PhD, benefited from 3D TRICKS after passing out while doing hobby welding in 2013. Thanks to 3D TRICKS, Grist determined that Wiley’s subclavian artery was diverting blood destined for Wiley’s brain to his arms, which he had raised while welding. A stent was placed in the artery, and Wiley fully recovered.

Starting before and continuing throughout his 18-year span as chair of the Department of Radiology, Grist negotiated several strategic agreements between UW–Madison and GE HealthCare relating to imaging modalities.

“Having Tom Grist’s guidance and advice over the years has been invaluable. His leadership and contributions have created a foundation and legacy that will be felt for years, propelling us to a bright future. We are incredibly grateful and proud of this longstanding partnership and the significant impact on improving care for millions of patients across the world,” says Manuela Govin, executive – academics, GE HealthCare.

Grist also was instrumental in GE HealthCare’s multi-million-dollar flagship gift to help launch construction of the first Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR) tower, which opened in 2008 and includes laboratories, imaging rooms and radiation sciences research space.

“GE HealthCare’s gift was the catalyst for the Medical Imaging Services Core at WIMR,” Grist says. “The gift brought together many people who used to be in disparate campus locations, and it has fostered invaluable collaboration among researchers in the Departments of Radiology and Medical Physics who specialize in MRI, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, positron emission tomography (PET)/CT, and PET/MR.”

Faculty Expansion

During his tenure as chair, Grist more than doubled the number of Department of Radiology faculty members from 63 to 134.

“Clinical demand for imaging has grown substantially, along with patient volume across the UW Health system,” says Grist. “Moreover, the Medical Imaging Services Core has enabled us to significantly boost our research and education capacity. Ultimately, however, it is about the quality of the people we have been able to recruit. With their dedication to innovation and clinical excellence, the department is in good hands.”

Ironically, Grist’s first faculty hire nearly two decades ago, Scott Reeder, MD, PhD, succeeded Grist as chair in early 2024.

“Tom is one of those unusual people who combines an extensive background in technical innovation with a strong sense of humanity and values,” Reeder says. “He has been a wonderful mentor to me and has helped set this department up for even greater success. He also likes to have fun and live life to the fullest, be it kite surfing, water skiing, cross-country skiing or bicycle riding. Because Tom also loves to dance, in late 2023, the department held a disco party to celebrate his 18 years as chair.”

To honor Grist, in 2024, the GE HealthCare Foundation established a $3 million endowment fund to help the Department of Radiology recruit, retain and recognize an outstanding research leader. From now on, the department’s position of vice chair of research also will be named the Thomas Grist, MD/GE HealthCare Foundation Distinguished Chair in Radiology Research.

The only thing greater than Grist’s commitment to UW–Madison and his department is his love for his wife and their five grown children.

“Tom truly does it all,” says Reeder. “He’s a kind, compassionate person, an outstanding radiologist, a remarkable innovator and a great leader, and he puts it all in one hat.”