Recognition Awards

Recognition Award Recipients

The 2026 Award cycle is CLOSED

Awards cycle CLOSED on Monday, September 29, 2025.

Questions? Contact us at nominations@asts.org!

2025 Pioneer Award: Christian Larsen, MD, DPhil, FACS

larsen Dr. Larsen is a professor of surgery in the Division of Transplantation at Emory University School of Medicine and affiliate scientist at Emory National Primate Research Center.

He attended medical school at Emory University School of Medicine as well as receiving a Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Oxford.

His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms involved in initiation and maintenance of T cell responses.

Francis Moore Excellence in Mentorship in the Field of Transplantation Surgery Award

Stephan Busque, MD, MSc
Stanford University School of Medicine

Stéphan Busque, MD, MSc, FRCSC, is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Abdominal Transplantation at Stanford University, where he serves as Surgical Director of the Adult Kidney, Islet, and Pancreas Transplant Program and Director of Clinical Research for the division. Dr. Busque earned his MD degree from the Université de Montréal, where he also completed his general surgery training. He subsequently undertook a research fellowship in transplant immunology at the McGill Center for Clinical Immunobiology, followed by a clinical fellowship in abdominal transplantation at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco under the mentorship of Drs. Carlos Esquivel and Oscar Salvatierra.

Dr. Busque returned to the Université de Montréal to practice in the transplant units at Notre-Dame Hospital and Sainte-Justine Pediatric Hospital before returning to the U.S. West Coast in 2001. His research focuses on optimizing clinical immunosuppression and advancing strategies to induce immunological tolerance following kidney transplantation.

Throughout his career, Dr. Busque has contributed extensively to education and mentorship, training more than 30 surgical transplant fellows and 10 nephrology transplant fellows, and mentoring numerous junior faculty members. He remains committed to extending mentorship and knowledge sharing across the multidisciplinary spectrum of transplant care delivery.

Pipeline Award

Heidi Yeh, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Yeh is the Surgical Director of Pediatric Transplant and the Associate Director of the Liver Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She did all of her training from medical school through her first year as faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. Her funded research interests include liver preservation and repair, and access to transplantation, but she is always excited to learn about other topics!

Access to Transplantation Award

Jeffrey D. Punch MD
University of Michigan

Dr. Punch is Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He attended Medical School at the University of Michigan where he also completed residencey in General Surgery and Fellowship in Transplantation. He was the Director of the University of Michigan Transplant Center for 14 years.

Beginning in 2013 Dr. Punch spent seven years training four surgeons in Ethiopia to do living donor nephrectomy and kidney transplantation. This involved over 50 trips to Ethiopia. He had assistance from a team of Nephrologists, Social Workers, and Nurses. Together, they helped the Ethiopians create a high quality transplant program. Prior to this program, there had never been a kidney transplant in Ethiopia. The training was a success and the program now functions independently, without outside assistance and has started a fellowship to train additional surgeons.

Following the pandemic, Dr. Punch led a team working in Rwanda to train two surgeons there. As with Ethiopia, the training involved many trips to Rwanda. He was assisted by other surgical colleagues, Nephrologists, and Social Workers. The training was a success and the surgeons and the program now functions independently. The Rwandans have also begun a transplant fellowship to provide training in kidney transplantation for African surgeons. The program has also had excellent outcomes.

Rising Stars in Transplantation Surgery Award

James M. Gardner, M.D., Ph.D.
University of California San Francisco

James (Jay) Gardner, MD PhD is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is a pediatric and adult abdominal transplant surgeon, a core investigator in the UCSF Diabetes Center, and a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He leads a basic and translational immunology laboratory studying fundamental immune tolerance pathways, and over the past decade his work has defined novel tolerogenic antigen-presenting cell populations that regulate immune responses to self, allogeneic, dietary, tumoral, and commensal antigens.

Dr. Gardner’s laboratory integrates advanced transgenic mouse models, next-generation transcriptomics, human tissue biology, normothermic perfusion technologies, and cutting-edge immune diagnostics. His research is supported by the NIH (NHGRI UM1, NCI R37) and multiple foundation awards, including previously the ASTS Fellowship in Transplantation grant, and is the only surgeon elected as a Pew Biomedical Scholar in the program’s 40-year history. He is also the founding director of the UCSF Viable Tissue Acquisition Laboratory (VITAL Core), an institutional platform enabling research access to human organs and tissues not used for transplantation, and serves as an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation, where he directs the LitWatch section highlighting transformative basic science advances for the transplant community.

Dr. Gardner completed his undergraduate training at Harvard University and received his MD and PhD at UCSF, where he started his lab while completing general surgery residency and transplant surgery fellowship, before joining the faculty. He is an active mentor across surgery, immunology, and translational science, teaches in the graduate and medical schools, and serves as the faculty director of ImmunoExplore, a science outreach program for underrepresented Bay Area high school students. He is committed to building interdisciplinary programs that bridge fundamental discovery with clinical transplantation to drive transformative change in the field.

Vanguard Prize

Michelle C. Nguyen, MD MPH FACS
Mayo Clinic Arizona

Michelle C. Nguyen, M.D., M.P.H. is a consultant in the Division of Transplant Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and an associate professor of surgery at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. She joined Mayo Clinic in 2021. Dr. Nguyen earned her B.S. in microbiology and M.D. with Research Distinction from the University of Iowa, followed by an M.P.H. in clinical translational science and completion of her general surgery residency at The Ohio State University. She subsequently trained in multi-organ transplantation at Johns Hopkins and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

A board-certified abdominal transplant surgeon, Dr. Nguyen specializes in adult liver, kidney, pancreas, and multi-organ transplantation. She led the development of Mayo Clinic Arizona’s robotic transplant surgery program, establishing robotic living donor nephrectomy and robotic kidney transplantation as integral components of the center’s minimally invasive transplant strategy.

Dr. Nguyen is recognized for her work in organ preservation and transplant outcomes. She directs a Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation–funded study evaluating biliary and perfusate biomarkers from NMP liver grafts and co-directs RELIVERATE, a bioengineering initiative focused on regenerating discarded donor livers. She serves as site principal investigator for a biosensor-based organ monitoring collaboration with the Terasaki Institute and is principal investigator of the 2025 ASTS TransMedics Faculty Perfusion Grant on real-time biomarker assessment during NMP. She also serves as the Mayo Clinic Arizona site co-lead for the Genesis Challenge within the Mayo Clinic Advanced Innovation Research (MC-AIR) program and project lead for the Liver Perfusion and Transplant Outcomes initiative within the Mayo Clinic Center for Policy and Outcomes Research in Transplantation (CPORT) and Chronic Disease Research Group (CDRG) collaboration.

Her innovation portfolio includes SMART-Organ (Sensing Metabolic, Anti-inflammatory, and Rejection Trends for Organ Health), supported by the MC-AIR program, and she is an inventor on the 2025 U.S. provisional patent Method, Systems, and Devices for Analyte Monitoring, which advances the development of microfluidic biosensors for continuous organ health monitoring during organ perfusion.

Dr. Nguyen’s work has been presented at major national and international meetings and published in leading journals. Nationally, she serves as vice chair of the ASTS Fellowship Training Committee, helping shape the future of transplant surgery training.

Advanced Transplant Provider Award

Daryle M. Blackstock, PhD, MPH, PA-C, CCTC
New York Presbyterian Hospital - CUIMC, CHNY, & WMC

Daryle M. Blackstock serves as Director of Clinical Transplant Operations at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where he leads one of the nation’s largest multi-organ transplant programs across three campuses. Since assuming this role in 2020, he has unified transplant operations, advanced patient safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, and implemented system-wide innovations in quality, compliance, and patient access. He also co-developed the partial heart transplant program at NYP/CHoNY, now the second largest in the country, expanding life-saving options for pediatric patients and families.

A Certified Physician Assistant (PA-C) and Certified Clinical Transplant Coordinator (CCTC), Blackstock began his career in surgical and transplant roles at NewYork Methodist, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Westchester Medical Center, later joining NewYork-Presbyterian, where he advanced to Chief Transplant Physician Assistant before his current leadership appointment. In this capacity, he pioneered a new model for transplant PAs, creating a cross-disciplinary training framework that transformed inpatient care delivery and positioned PAs as integral members of the transplant team.

Blackstock is deeply dedicated to serving all patients—especially the transplant population—and believes in working together collegially to provide the safest, most innovative care possible while keeping patients first while caring for ourselves as healthcare providers. He is a consummate advocate for equity and justice, as evidenced by his receipt of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Award in 2025 from the New York State Society of Physician Assistants.

Nationally, Blackstock has made significant contributions to the transplant profession through leadership and service. He served as a member of the ASTS DEI Committee and the Boldly Against Racism Task Force, and currently serves as ASTS Representative to the ATC Program Planning Committee (2024–2026). He is the Incoming President of the American Board for Transplant Certification (ABTC), where he has championed initiatives to strengthen certification standards and advance professional recognition for transplant providers.

His academic work includes publications in leading journals such as the American Journal of Transplantation and Progress in Transplantation, as well as presentations at ATC, ASTS, AAPA, and UNOS on workforce development, equity, clinical and research topics, professional development, and disparities in transplantation. Blackstock earned his PA education at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, a BA from Rutgers University, an MPH from New York Medical College, and completed his PhD in Environmental & Planetary Health Sciences at the City University of New York School of Public Health (CUNY SPH) in May 2025, where he was honored as one of the “Top Ten of Ten” Award recipients by CUNY SPH in 2025 for academic excellence and leadership. His doctoral research focused on COVID-19 outcomes in interstitial lung disease populations across New York City, employing geospatial analysis, advanced statistical modeling, and Mendelian randomization techniques to explore environmental, contextual, and genetic determinants of disease outcomes.

Blackstock was honored as the inaugural recipient of the ASTS Sherilyn Gordon Memorial Travel Award, further underscoring his longstanding commitment to the transplant community.

"This award reflects a lifelong commitment to justice, equity, serving patients, and advancing transplant care. My mother always told me, ‘Never tell yourself no,’ and my grandmother reminded me, ‘Once they put it in your head, they can’t take it away.’ Those words have guided me throughout my career. It is a privilege to work collaboratively to provide the safest, most innovative care possible—always keeping patients first."

— Daryle M. Blackstock, PhD, MPH, PA-C, CCT

Sherilyn Gordon Memorial Travel Award

Morgan S. Miovski, B.S.
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

Morgan Miovski is a second-year medical student at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. In March 2020, she became a living liver donor to her mother, who made a remarkable recovery after facing end-stage liver disease. Her mother’s restored health serves a consistent reminder of the profound impact of transplant medicine and continues to inspire Morgan’s passion for the field.

Morgan graduated summa cum laude from the Honors Program at Northeastern University, where she founded the university’s chapter of Student Organ Donation Advocates (SODA). Before medical school, she worked under Dr. David Briscoe in the Transplant Research Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, contributing to immunological tolerance studies.

At NJMS, Morgan conducts research in the laboratory of Dr. Keri Lunsford. Morgan’s current work focuses on the relationship between immune dysfunction, physical frailty, and waitlist outcomes among liver transplant candidates. She is a proud recipient of the ASTS Presidential Student Mentor Grant, which supports her work in the Lunsford Lab. Morgan also serves as the Medical Student Procurement Coordinator at NJMS and recently participated in the AASLD Capitol Hill Day with Dr. Lunsford, engaging with congressional staff on key liver disease legislation.

Sarah Tsou, MD
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Sarah Tsou is a general surgery resident at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she is currently spending her research years in the Transplant Surgery Research Laboratory under the mentorship of Dr. Stefan G. Tullius. She completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard College, graduating with a degree in the History of Science, before going on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. Now, as a general surgery resident with a clinical interest in transplantation, her research focus lies in the potential to manipulate the immune system and address the biological complexities of aging and cellular senescence, in order to enhance the effectiveness and longevity of transplanted organs. In her free time, she enjoys exploring new cafes and coffee shops, crochet/embroidery, and attending live theater performances.

Heidi Sarumi, MMS, PA-C
University of Minnesota

Heidi Sarumi, PA-C is an accomplished Physician Assistant with 16 years of specialized experience in transplant surgery, recognized for her clinical excellence, leadership, and dedication to advancing advanced practice provider (APP) practice nationwide. Throughout her career, she has played integral roles at the University of Minnesota transplant program, contributing to innovations in perioperative care, multidisciplinary team coordination, and patient outcomes across the transplant continuum.

A respected voice in her field, Heidi currently serves as the Vice Chair of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) Advanced Practice Provider Committee, where she helps shape national initiatives focused on APP resources and inclusion. In this leadership role, she collaborates with transplant professionals across the country to elevate the impact of APPs within highly specialized surgical environments.

Heidi is also deeply engaged in research and quality-improvement initiatives, leading and contributing to projects designed to optimize transplant workflows, enhance patient safety, and improve long-term clinical outcomes. Her commitment to advancing transplant care has been widely recognized: she was honored as the Advanced Transplant Provider of the Year in 2020 for her contributions to the field and commitment to professional excellence.

She also continues to mentor emerging clinicians while championing collaborative, high-quality care for transplant patients and their families.

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