Internal Medicine recognizes faculty, staff with 2025 Pyramid Awards

Lai received the Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award for her groundbreaking work in the field of pathobiology of pulmonary hypertension related to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. This disease remains poorly understood and lacks specific therapies, making Lai’s research particularly significant. Her innovative studies have uncovered a crucial link between the skeletal muscle secretome and the endocrine regulation of vascular remodeling within the pulmonary circulation. This remarkable discovery has the potential to pave the way for new therapeutic approaches. 

Outstanding Early Career Clinician Award

Olivia Nirmalasari, MD

Nirmalasari — or Dr. Olivia as she is known to patients and colleagues alike — is an outstanding physician in the Center for Senior Health and Healthy Aging Brain Center at Eskenazi Health. In her few years on faculty, she has become the go-to person for primary care in geriatrics. Nirmalasari sees some of the frailest and most complicated patients, providing comprehensive and detail-oriented care to those patients and their families. Her patient panel is a spectrum, including people from underserved, impoverished or non-English speaking groups to regional VIPs. In the Healthy Aging Brain Center, Nirmalasari currently sees more patients than all other physicians combined. It is clear she is helping to drive a successful and nationally recognized program in dementia care.

Distinguished Teaching Award

Timothy Sutton, MD

Sutton has been a leader in medical education for many years, and he has played a major role in guiding medical education within the Division of Nephrology. He served for many years as the director of the nephrology fellowship program, and he continues to serve as the key clinical educator for the division. Sutton works passionately to develop the next generation of nephrologists, and champions nephrology among IU medical students and residents. He has worked diligently in creating and maintaining a structured curriculum for the residents and medical students to ensure they learn the field. Additionally, Sutton helped develop a program that helps MD/PhD students re-integrate back into clinical medicine after completing their PhD training. This program has been incredibly helpful in ensuring that these students will be able to adapt more quickly into their clinical rotations. In addition to this recognition, Sutton is a two-time winner of the Trustees’ Teaching Award. 

Distinguished Teaching Award
Maria Robles, MD

Robles has been an excellent clinician educator for her entire career, having won two Trustees’ Teaching Awards. She effectively combined her passion for caring for patients with alcohol and opioid use disorders with her interest in medical education by creating an inpatient and outpatient service to help such individuals. She recognized the importance of training learners on how best to manage these patients early in her career: thanks to Robles, the Department of Medicine already had an addiction training program in place when the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education began requiring internal medicine residents to participate in such training. Because of these efforts, she recently became the department’s key clinical educator for pain medication management.

Outstanding Mentorship Award
Thomas Imperiale, MD

Imperiale is the Lawrence Lumeng Professor of Gastroenterology, a distinguished professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and a research scientist at the Regenstreif Institute. He is a world authority on colorectal cancer screening and prevention, and has been heavily involved in the development of colorectal cancer guidelines. Imperiale has mentored many clinicians and researchers: he mentored at least 22 fellows in the last 10 years, as well as mentoring nearly every GI junior faculty on research methodology.

Award in Inclusive Excellence
Department of Medicine’s Internal Medicine Residency Program Director and Administrative Team, including Jennifer Hur, MD; Nichelle Wilson; Shalae Ryan; and Angie Klinge

Each year, the Indianapolis-based Internal Medicine Residency Program recruits an incredibly talented class of residents who reflect the community in which they’ll serve. This is thanks to the hard work of program director Jennifer Hur, MD, and her team. (Pictured above).

Outstanding Staff Member Award
Holly Crandall

Crandall is a project management specialist in the Division of Gastroenterology. She shows outstanding leadership, innovation and dedication to improving research operations within the division’s Hepatology Research Group. Crandall began her research career as a clinical research nurse in December 2018, and she quickly demonstrated her ability to optimize workflows, mentor colleagues and improve research efficiency. Crandall’s contributions led to her well-earned promotion to advanced project management specialist in July 2023. Through her commitment to process improvement, staff engagement and research excellence, Crandall has made a lasting impact on study efficiency, research oversight and team collaboration, exemplifying the core mission of the Department of Medicine. 

Outstanding Advanced Practice Provider Award

William Thompson, PA-C

Thompson, a certified physician assistant, is an adjunct clinical assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Palliative Care. He sets himself apart from other advanced practice providers (or APPs) in many ways: Thompson regularly works with and mentors PA students, and in 2024, he was in the top three for most precepting hours among APPs for IU Health, totaling over 700 hours for the 2023-24 academic year.