Rima Afifi, Lisa Roth honored with 2025 Discovery and Innovation awards
Published on April 3, 2025
Once annually, the University of Iowa Office of the Vice President for Research reviews nominations for nine major awards that recognize faculty and staff excellence in research, scholarship, and creative activities.
These awards, a part of the long-standing Discovery and Innovation Awards program, celebrate researchers and scholars who receive national recognition for forging new frontiers of discovery.
The awards also honor faculty and staff who excel at sharing their work with broad audiences beyond academia, administer complex research programs, and provide outstanding mentorship for the next generation of researchers, scholars, and artists.
“Together, these faculty and staff are driving innovations that have real-world impacts for Americans,” said Lois Geist, interim vice president for research. “From elucidating mechanisms that underlie serious health conditions, to building strong partnerships with our communities, to fostering creativity, these scholars and artists are among the best and brightest at the University of Iowa.”
Rima Afifi and Lisa Roth from the College of Public Health were honored with awards, which are detailed below.
Faculty Award
Rima Afifi, professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health, was awarded the 2025 Distinguished Achievement in Publicly Engaged Research Award.
Afifi leads the Prevention Research Center for Rural Health, which is dedicated to community-engaged research and to addressing public health challenges facing rural communities. Working together with community partners across Iowa and the nation, the center is focused on a range of rural health disparities, from tobacco use and physical activity, to the social determinants of health.
Afifi incorporates community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches into her research, practice and teaching whenever possible and has published on the powerful process and outcomes of community-engaged research projects in which she had been involved. Her work focuses on mental health, refugee and immigrant well-being, and substance use. Afifi’s passion is to work with adolescents and young adults to craft environments conducive to their well-being. She is a regulator collaborator with the Office of Community Engagement.
“In the field of community-engaged scholarship, CBPR is considered the gold standard, requiring researchers to not only include community partners in projects, but equally and equitably center communities in all facets of the research process,” said Nick Benson, executive director of the Office of Community Engagement, who nominated her for the award. “Through Dr. Afifi’s teaching and mentorship, a future generation of community-engaged scholars are learning not only how their research can advance their careers in the academy, but how they can shape and transform the world in which we live.”
Staff Award
Lisa Roth, deputy director of the Injury Prevention Research Center in the College of Public Health, is the 2025 Distinguished Research Professional.
In her 10 years in this role, Roth has been actively involved in securing funding for numerous research projects, including a project focused on implementing an evidence-based safe driving program for high-risk teen drivers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
She also serves as the coordinator for several statewide and national initiatives, including a network of 11 Injury Control Research Centers across the nation. In this role, she is charged with ensuring cross-site collaboration and fostering a culture of shared learning and collective innovation. As a result, the centers have developed unified injury prevention strategies and expanded their research impacts.
Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, showcasing her research on topics such as safe driving interventions for high-risk teens and parent-based interventions to support injured children.
“Her expertise in bridging research and practice, particularly through her collaborative work with community, state, and federal partners, has had a transformative impact on injury and violence prevention initiatives and policy development in Iowa and beyond,” said Hans-Joachim Lehmler, professor and associate dean for research in the College of Public Health. “In addition, her mentorship of research staff has been instrumental in developing the next generation of public health professionals, ensuring they are well-prepared to tackle complex health challenges.”