July 22, 2015
Dear Committee:
I am writing this requested letter to support the candidacy of Dr. Lynn Moore for the Special Recognition Teaching Award in the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.
I worked with Lynn when I was a fellow in general internal medicine and preventive medicine from 2008 to approximately 2009/2010. During this time she served as my primary research mentor and master’s degree thesis advisor for epidemiology in the BU School of Public Health. We worked together on a nutritional epidemiology project examining the effect of diet patterns on obesity in adolescent girls as part of the NHLBI’s National Growth and Health study, and she was PI on a grant using this study for investigation of a number of nutritional questions and health.
I have many positive things to say about my experience working with Lynn. Starting with the initial meeting, I still remember Lynn’s enthusiasm, her welcoming attitude into her research group and her willingness to consider a research question I had developed based on my own curiosity and review of the literature. Even though she is an expert in her field, she always treated me as an equal and was generous with her time, willing to help me numerous times through challenges in the project and with the analytic process. She also generously offered for me to work with members of her team to offload some of the more mundane tasks (such as SAS programming and creation of graphics) so that I could focus on data analysis and eventually the manuscript writing, key skills in the development of a post-doctoral fellow.
While allowing me to pursue the research question that most interested me, she graciously shared her expertise. We had a natural first author-senior author relationship that resulted in a manuscript publication in 2011 in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (now JAMA Pediatrics). She was also an enthusiastic career mentor, encouraging me to pursue an investigative career in nutritional epidemiology and even discussed ways her section of preventive medicine could potentially support a faculty role for me though I ended up pursing a clinician educator faculty track.
In summary, I submit my enthusiastic support for Lynn Moore for the special recognition teaching award. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have additional questions.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Berz MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Program Director, Preventive Medicine Residency Program
Boston University School of Medicine
Section of General Internal Medicine | 801 Massachusetts Ave, 2nd floor | Boston, MA 02118 | p (617) 414-7399 | f (617) 414-4676