Gift from the former UAB sociology professor will create gender and health programming.
Former University of Alabama at Birmingham sociology professor Dr. Michele ‘Mike’ Wilson devoted much of her professional life working toward the betterment of those less fortunate, especially in the field of women’s health. So it should come as no surprise that before her passing in 2021, Dr. Wilson established a fund – the ‘Mike’ Wilson Gift – that donated a significant portion of her estate to the UAB Department of Sociology.
During her time at the university, Dr. Wilson started and directed the UAB Women’s Studies program, and was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year. She advocated for female graduate students as far back as the 1980s, when she was the only female professor in the Department of Sociology. In 2006, she received the President’s Diversity Champion Award for her work in equality.
“Mike was bold, courageous and ahead of her time,” says UAB sociology professor Patricia Drentea, PhD, MA. “She was a tireless worker in women’s health, and a strong believer in doing as much as she could in society. She was able to create projects and work that helped women, and would always involve other faculty and students to try to move society forward.”
One of the initial events created by the ‘Mike’ Wilson Gift is the inaugural ‘Mike’ Wilson Lecture Series, to be held at 1:30 p.m. on October 10 at the UAB National Alumni Society House. The speaker will be Chloe E. Bird, PhD, FAAAS, FAAHB, director of the Center for Health Equity Research at Tufts Medical Center, and the Sara Murray Jordan Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical School in Boston
Bird has served as senior advisor in the National Institutes of Health’s Office for Research on Women’s Health, and was editor-in-chief of the Women’s Health Issues medical journal. Her talk at the ‘Mike’ Wilson Lecture Series will focus on a vision for rigorous, actionable research on women’s health. Learn more about the lecture.
“Just as Mike did, Dr. Bird has really devoted her career towards furthering women’s health,” Drentea says. “She has been on the forefront and cutting edge of medicine and policy, while still working within sociology as well. It is very rare to be able to excel in both those arenas.”
The lecture series is one of several programs UAB plans to create through the funds generated by the ‘Mike’ Wilson Gift, says Department of Sociology associate professor Christina Falci.
“The committee that oversees the ‘Mike’ Wilson Gift aims to support service projects, teaching endeavors, and speakers or panels,” Falci says. “All in the spirit of continuing her UAB legacy.”
