During a ceremony held at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Headquarters, Fort Detrick, Md., Aug. 8, three senior research scientists from the USAMRMC were honored by Maj. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr., USAMRMC and Fort Detrick commander, for their dedication and service to the command. The awardees included Dr. Jaques Reifman, Dr. Connie Schmaljohn, and Dr. Leonard Smith. All three researchers have played a role in various accomplishments seen by the USAMRMC over the past three decades, and together they account for over 75 years of service to the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense.

Reifman serves at the USAMRMC's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, where he is also the director of DOD's Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute for Force Health Protection, which he created. He is responsible for creating the capabilities in computational biology for both the Army and the DOD. Reifman has authored over 150 peer-reviewed technical publications and book chapters, and he is the inventor of six U.S. patents.

As the Senior Scientist for Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Schmaljohn has directed several efforts to develop and test DNA vaccines for highly pathogenic viruses of military or biodefense importance, including a planned clinical study of a Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus DNA vaccine and nonhuman primate studies with filovirus and arenavirus DNA vaccines. She has authored or co-authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications during her three-decade-plus career in science and research.

Smith currently serves as the Acting Scientific Director at USAMRIID, where he has worked since 1982. During his 31-year career serving the USAMRMC, he has held positions as Principal Investigator, Department of Immunology and Molecular Biology Chief, and Senior Research Scientist. Smith is an author on over 150 research publications, holds several patents, and sits on numerous editorial boards of professional journals in the fields of vaccines, biochemistry, and biotechnology.

The three honorees were given lapel pins and official flags for their commitment to the U.S. military and the nation.