ATHENS, Ga.—An award-winning author, journalist and editor has been named the first holder of the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism at the University of Georgia, responsible for a major outreach project aimed at improving the flow of public health news in the impoverished South.

Patricia Thomas, who has written about medicine, public health and life science research for more than 30 years, has agreed to join the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication in August.

“We’re delighted that Pat Thomas will be the first holder of this important position,” said John Soloski, dean of the Grady College. “Her background and interest in public health communication is without equal. Her presence will no doubt bolster Grady’s already strong health communication program and further cement the university’s commitment to improving public health.”

From 1991-1997, Thomas was the first non-physician to serve as editor of the Harvard Health Letter, the oldest consumer health newsletter in the country. She has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1998 was awarded the Leonard Silk Journalism Fellowship for her book Big Shot: Passion, Politics, and the Struggle for an AIDS Vaccine, a work-in-progress at the time. She was also among the first healthy volunteers to be injected with an experimental DNA vaccine for AIDS, in a study at the National Institutes of Health.

Thomas won the 2002 Deterling Award of Distinction from the American Medical Writers Association, New England chapter. During the 2002-03 academic year, she was a visiting scholar at Boston University’s Knight Center for Science and Medical Journalism. While there, she taught graduate students and wrote The Anthrax Attacks, the first systematic analysis of news management and reporting during the 2001 anthrax attacks. She also wrote an essay for The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism that explored how the Patriot Act and related legislation has damaged scientific efforts to understand and conquer some of the world’s leading causes of death.

Thomas has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s in communication from Stanford University. Her work appears regularly in Harvard Magazine, where she is a contributing editor. In addition, she is a research fellow for the Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute and adviser to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Knight Science Journalism Fellowship.

At the University of Georgia, Thomas will develop and teach undergraduate and master’s courses in health and medical journalism and create an outreach program aimed at improving the flow of health news to the Southern Black Belt, a rural strip of hundreds of counties winding through 11 states.

“The need for accurate, understandable health information is particularly acute in the impoverished counties in the Southern Black Belt,” Soloski said. “This geographic area is home to a third of the nation’s 34.6 million poor – a world without enough family doctors or adequate health insurance.”

UGA is located in the center of the bioscience corridor between Atlanta and Augusta. As holder of the Knight Chair, Thomas will partner with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medical College of Georgia, the Morehouse School of Medicine, Emory University and other institutions to develop programs to improve media coverage and strengthen communication of health issues.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Knight Foundation trustees awarded the $1.5 million chair to the Grady College in 2004. The University of Georgia pledged an additional $1.9 million to support the chair activities.

“For Americans to live as long and as well as they might, they need access to the best health news and information,” said Eric Newton, director of Journalism Initiatives at Knight Foundation. “Health news has increased during the past two decades, but quality hasn’t kept up with quantity. We think Pat Thomas will be able to make a difference there.”

From 1990 through 2004, the foundation has established 18 Knight Chairs in Journalism at major U.S. colleges and universities, investing $27 million in the program. Knight chairs are classroom innovators, catalysts for new university programs and accomplished journalists who hope to improve their profession nationally.

The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2005. It provides seven undergraduate majors including advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to the Peabody Awards, one of the premier programs in broadcasting. For more information, visit www.grady.uga.edu.