The Department of Pathology is thrilled to announce the winners of its inaugural 2025 Chair’s Excellence Awards. These awards celebrate faculty members in the Department of Pathology who exude clinical, research and educational excellence. This year’s winners are Hua Guo, M.D., M.S., Chair’s Award for Clinical Excellence, Ming He, M.D., Ph.D., Chair’s Award for Research Excellence, and Valeria Dal Zotto, M.D., Chair’s Award for Educational Excellence. Winners are chosen by Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, M.D., Ph.D., Robert and Ruth Anderson Endowed Chair.
Chair’s Award for Clinical Excellence
The department’s primary clinical goal is to care for patients through accurate and timely diagnoses and testing, continually working on more effective ways to treat patients through precision medicine. The Chair’s Award for Clinical Excellence recognizes a faculty member’s impactful clinical efforts for the previous fiscal year.
Hua Guo, M.D., M.S., an associate professor in the Division of Women’s Health, is the recipient of the 2025 Chair’s Award for Clinical Excellence.
Guo joined the department as associate professor and director of the pathology breast service from Columbia University in 2022. Guo earned her medical and master’s degrees in pathology and pathophysiology from West China School of Medicine. She completed her anatomic pathology training at Peking University First Hospital in China followed by anatomic pathology/clinical pathology residency at Northwell Health, New York. She pursued subspecialty breast pathology fellowship training at the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and joined the faculty of Department of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, in 2018.
Guo is actively engaged in the diagnostic surgical pathology service, especially in breast pathology. Her major interests include discovery and evaluation of biomarkers in breast cancer, phenotype pattern and molecular mechanisms of breast carcinoma brain metastasis and breast carcinoma in young females.
“Dr. Guo carries her full load of clinical sign-out responsibilities: Breast, GYN, frozen sections and night and weekend calls,” said Shi Wei, M.D., Ph.D., Hazel Gore, MBBS, Endowed Professor, Division Director, Women’s Health. “She covered 13.6 weeks of breast biopsy and consult, 7.8 weeks of breast resection, 9.6 weeks of breast biomarkers, 7.2 weeks of GYN biopsy and consults, 8.8 weeks of GYN resection and 4 weeks of frozen section. As the breast pathology section head, she oversees the monthly high-risk breast lesion Rad-Path conference, in addition to presentations at breast and GYN tumor boards. Guo participates in breast cancer clinical trials and oversees the breast pathology consultants’ conference every other day. A team player, she is willing to take additional service work whenever there is faculty shortage.”
Chair’s Award for Research Excellence
The Department of Pathology’s research spans the range of fundamental mechanisms of disease to identification of biomarkers and development of novel therapeutics. The Chair’s Award for Research Excellence seeks to recognize a faculty member’s impactful research efforts for the previous fiscal year.
Ming He, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, is the recipient of the 2025 Chair’s Award for Research Excellence.
He joined the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology as an assistant professor in 2022 from the University of California, San Diego, where he was an assistant project scientist in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Cardiology.
He received his medical degree in clinical medicine and Ph.D. in internal medicine from Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, China, before working as a resident physician at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiao Tong University. He joined the University of California in San Diego’s Department of Medicine in 2014 as a postdoctoral scholar and became project scientist in 2019.
He’s research focuses on atherosclerosis. He studies epitranscriptomic changes in endothelium aggravate atherosclerosis and aging-accelerated atherosclerosis. He recently received $5 million in grant funding from two back-to-back R01 awards to explore epigenetic regulation in atherosclerosis.
“He is an early-stage investigator who received two R01s this year,” said Rakesh Patel, Ph.D., Victor Darley-Usmar Ph.D., Endowed Professor, Division Director, Molecular and Cellular Pathology. “This is an outstanding achievement given the challenges and competitiveness in obtaining R01 research funding. More impressive is the fact that he received both awards on their first submissions which underscores the high quality and significance of the research he is pursuing.”
Chair’s Award for Educational Excellence
UAB Pathology is committed to advancing the education of our students and trainees through robust, hands-on programs. The Chair’s Award for Educational Excellence seeks to recognize a faculty member’s impactful educational efforts for the previous fiscal year.
Valeria Dal Zotto, M.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Women's Health, is the recipient of the 2025 Chair’s Award for Educational Excellence.
Dal Zotto joined the newly formed UAB Division of Women’s Health in 2022 as an assistant professor. She joined UAB from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, where she served as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dal Zotto received her medical degree from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Medicas in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1995. She completed her residency in anatomic pathology in Hospital de Clinicas’ Department of Pathology in 1999 before completing a surgical pathology fellowship at Sanatorio Mater Dei, Buenos Aires. In 2017, she completed a second residency in combined anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of South Alabama’s College of Medicine and a second fellowship in surgical pathology at the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Pathology.
Before joining East Carolina University, Dal Zotto served as an assistant professor at the University of South Alabama Medical Center. She previously served as staff pathologist and director of the service of pathology in Hospital Evangelico, Siguatepeque, Comayagua, Honduras, from 2007-2010.
“Dr. Valeria Dal Zotto is not only knowledgeable about the subject matter with outstanding diagnostic and grossing skills, but also a role model and excellent teacher,” said Andrea Kahn, M.D., a professor in the Division of Women’s Health and GYN section head.
“Dr. Dal Zotto is a valuable source of knowledge, and she is an amazing teacher to all residents, but especially the PGY1 residents,” said Nicholas Eisele, D.O., PGY2. “She has this great ability to simplify more difficult topics, and this skill helps new residents feel more comfortable with the material she presents."
Award recipients will receive a $1K prize and be recognized at an upcoming awards reception on November 12.
“I’m ecstatic to recognize these three fantastic members of our department,” said Magi-Galluzzi. “Each one of them is incredibly deserving of these awards, and I offer my deepest congratulations and thanks for their support and commitment to the Department of Pathology.”