Research!America's 19th annual Advocacy Awards will honor distinguished research advocates who are trailblazers in advancing medical progress to improve the health and economic security of our nation. The event will take place on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kenneth Olden, director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, U.S. EPA, will be honored with the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Award for Sustained National Leadership. He is considered to be the strongest champion of community based participatory research in the U.S. He was named director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the director of the National Toxicology Program (NTP) on June 18, 1991, by Dr. Louis Sullivan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Dr. Olden is a cell biologist and biochemist by training, and has been active in cancer research for more than four decades. He was director of the Howard University Cancer Center and professor and chairman of the Department of Oncology at Howard University Medical School in Washington, D.C. from 1985, and founding dean of the School of Public Health at the City University of N.Y. from 2008-2012. Dr. Olden has served on the editorial boards of cancer and cell biology journals, he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 1994, and was named by President George H. W. Bush to the National Cancer Advisory Board in January 1991.