- Today, @AmerGeriatrics awards Dr. Brienne Miner (@SleepinbeautyMD) and Dr. Melisa Wong (@melisawongmd.bsky.social)(@KPDOR) the Arti Hurria Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators in Internal Medicine focused on #Geriatrics #AGS25 https://ow.ly/EMk950VvIii
New York, NY (April 7, 2025) —The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and the AGS Health in Aging Foundation announced the recipients of the Arti Hurria Award today — Brienne Miner, MD, MHS and Melisa Wong, MD, MAS, AGSF. Miner is an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine in Geriatrics at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT and Wong is a Research Scientist II in the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) and Associate Adjunct Professor in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Drs. Miner and Wong will receive Arti Hurria Memorial Awards for Emerging Investigators in Internal Medicine who are focused on Care of Older Adults at the AGS 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS25), held May 8 – 10 in Chicago, Illinois (pre-conference day May 7).
"Both Drs. Miner and Wong embody the spirit of the Arti Hurria Memorial Award through their dedication to advancing the care of older adults through its incorporation into their respective specialties,” said Mark A. Supiano, MD, AGSF, President of the American Geriatrics Society. “Dr. Miner’s research in sleep health and Dr. Wong’s research in geriatric oncology are shaping the future for all of us as we age and we are honored to recognize their contributions at #AGS25.”
Dr. Miner completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Yale University including serving as chief resident, followed by subspecialty training in geriatrics and sleep medicine, and a postdoctoral fellowship in geriatric clinical epidemiology and aging-related research. Her research path became clear while caring for patients in Yale’s Geriatric Assessment Clinic, where sleep disturbances are pervasive and challenging to manage. Her research, funded by GEMSSTAR and Beeson awards from the NIA, focuses on the evaluation and management of sleep deficiency in older persons. She uses both self-reported and objective measures — including devices such as gold-standard polysomnography, actigraphy, and encephalography-measuring headbands — to evaluate sleep comprehensively. Her work, published in leading aging and sleep medicine journals such as the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) and the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (JCSM), supports combining self-reported and objective measures as the best method to evaluate sleep. Ultimately, she aims to decrease the burden of sleep deficiency in patients and their care partners through interventions to promote sleep health.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Miner has served in leadership roles in aging and sleep societies, including as Chair of the AGS Junior Faculty Special Interest Group and of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation’s Sleep Research Program for Advancing Careers. She is a past recipient of the AGS New Investigator Award, a Tideswell Emerging Leaders in Aging scholar, and currently serves on the editorial board of JAGS.
Dr. Wong is a thoracic medical oncologist and geriatric oncology clinician-investigator who completed her residency in internal medicine at UCSF, followed by fellowships in medical oncology and aging research. Her research aims to transform cancer care for older adults — to help patients clarify their goals and values in the face of uncertainty and to support oncologists to keep these truths at the core of the care they provide. As an NIA Beeson K76 Scholar, Dr. Wong adapted, and pilot tested, the Best Case/Worst Case (BC/WC) communication tool from geriatric surgery to geriatric oncology to support shared decision making for older adults with cancer. She also developed the infrastructure for a multicenter prospective cohort study of older adults with lung cancer with serial geriatric assessments to develop risk prediction tools for functional and cognitive decline.
Dr. Wong was a 2022-2023 UCSF Pepper Center Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core Scholar and was inducted to the American Geriatrics Society Fellows in 2023. Amongst a plethora of honors and awards, her research paper ‘“You have to be sure that the patient has the full picture’: Adaptation of the Best Case/Worst Case communication tool for geriatric oncology” received the Journal of Geriatric Oncology’s Dr. Arti Hurria Best Paper Award for 2021-2022. As one of Dr. Hurria’s geriatric oncology mentees, Dr. Wong is especially honored to continue advancing the field that Dr. Hurria dedicated her career to.
About the American Geriatrics Society
Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) is a nationwide, not-for-profit society of geriatrics healthcare professionals dedicated to improving the health, independence, and quality of life of older people. Our 6,000+ members include geriatricians, geriatrics nurse practitioners, social workers, family practitioners, physician associates, pharmacists, and internists who are pioneers in serious illness care for older individuals, with a focus on championing interprofessional teams, eliciting personal care goals, and treating older people as whole persons. AGS is an anti-discriminatory organization. We believe in a society where we all are supported by and able to contribute to communities where ageism, ableism, classism, homophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of bias and discrimination no longer impact healthcare access, quality, and outcomes for older adults and their caregivers. AGS advocates for policies and programs that support the health, independence, and quality of life of all of us as we age.
About the Health in Aging Foundation
The Health in Aging Foundation is a national non-profit established in 1999 by the American Geriatrics Society to bring the knowledge and expertise of geriatrics healthcare professionals to the public. We are committed to ensuring that people are empowered to advocate for high-quality care by providing them with trustworthy information and reliable resources. Last year, we reached nearly 1 million people with our resources through HealthinAging.org. We also help nurture current and future geriatrics leaders by supporting opportunities to attend educational events and increase exposure to principles of excellence on caring for older adults. For more information or to support the Foundation's work, visit HealthinAging.org.
About the Arti Hurria Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators in Internal Medicine Who are Focused on the Care of Older Adults
Arti Hurria, MD, namesake of this award, joined the AGS in 2006 and championed some of our most influential programs connecting colleagues outside geriatrics to our principles, and to the rewards of supporting health, safety, and independence for us all as we age. Dr. Hurria, who sadly passed away in November 2018, believed in the need to infuse geriatrics into all specialties. She not only put that belief into action but also became a model for making it a priority across clinical care, research, and education. The Arti Hurria Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators in Internal Medicine Who are Focused on the Care of Older Adults recognizes the geriatrics-focused accomplishments of junior and mid-career clinician-investigators in general internal medicine and its specialties. Chosen from a review of hundreds of research presentations, the Hurria Awardee presents ground-breaking scholarship on the geriatrics aspects of their specialty in a special plenary session at the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting.
About the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting
The AGS Annual Scientific Meeting is the premier educational event in geriatrics, providing the latest information on clinical care, research on aging, and innovative models of care delivery. More than 2,600 nurses, pharmacists, physicians, physician assistants, social workers, long-term care and managed care providers, healthcare administrators, and others will convene May 8 – 10 (pre-conference day: Wednesday, May 7) in Chicago, IL to advance geriatrics knowledge and skills through state-of-the-art educational sessions and research presentations. For more information, visit https://meeting.americangeriatrics.org/.