Gold Standard Award for Public Health Laboratory Excellence

As Director of the Research and Development Group in Laboratory of Viral Diseases, Dr. St. George has investigated and developed numerous methods and platforms, including extensive applications of next generation sequencing. As a result, tens of thousands of viral sequences have been uploaded into public databases. With these data, her laboratories have developed the ability to track lines of importation and transmission during outbreaks.

Since 2012, Dr. St. George has led the Vaccine Preventable Diseases Reference Center in New York, and the National Influenza Reference Center in NY since 2015. In early 2021, she spearheaded the establishment of the New York State Sequencing Consortium, comprising laboratories at four major academic medical centers and Wadsworth. In 2022 the work was expanded to include wastewater testing. New methods and instruments were implemented for rapid automated sequencing at all sites, and a proficiency testing program was developed for sequence analysis in wastewater. She now serves as Scientific Director for the consortium.

Under Dr. St. George's direction and leadership, the virology laboratories at Wadsworth have developed over 100 methods for virus detection and characterization, including conventional and real-time PCR, Sanger-, pyro- and next generation sequencing, and specialty culture techniques for antiviral resistance and antibody neutralization. Many have been published in peer-reviewed literature or shared with other laboratories. Dr. St. George has authored or co-authored almost 200 publications, including 25 book chapters and reviews, and 150 papers in peer-reviewed literature. Approximately 125 of her papers cover work performed since moving to public health in 2004.

Through her APHL committee work, Dr. St. George has contributed to the development of guidance documents for best technical practices. Additionally, she was a member of the Lead Work Group for the National Influenza Surveillance Project, developing, writing and editing large sections of the Influenza Rightsize Roadmap with extensive sections on best technical practices.​​

With over 30 years of experience at the Florida Bureau of Public Health Laboratories, Dr. Susanne Crowe is the consummate public health laboratorian, dedicating her life and career to public health and the laboratory, Dr. Crowe worked her way up the laboratory ladder, starting as a laboratory technician performing environmental water testing and food sample analysis, moving up to serology and, after only five years, supervisor. In 2012, she became the Laboratory Director of the Bureau of Public Health Laboratories – Jacksonville location. She is responsible for the daily operation, administration, and management for this laboratory which performs testing in all aspects of infectious diseases, newborn screening, environmental microbiology and chemistry, biological and chemical threat agents, and certification of environmental testing laboratories. Currently, Dr. Crowe also serves as the Assistant Bureau Chief of the BPHL where she is responsible for and has oversight of the BPHL, including management of over 200 full-time employees. She is a lifelong learner and graduated with a DrPH from University of South Florida College of Public Health in July 2023.

During her career in the laboratory, Dr. Crowe became the subject matter expert and go to person for the Bureau's electronic laboratory information management systems. She was also instrumental in the initial configuration and statewide deployment of the Bureau's LabWare system, constantly involved in application maintenance. There was an urgent need during the COVID-19 pandemic to improve patient sample collection since this is primarily being conducted at community sites. Dr. Crowe saw a need to expand electronic ordering. After discussions with LabWare staff, a solution was born: Portable Disease Surveillance Lab aka PDSL. This is a portable electronic ordering system that could be used in the field during sample collection, with orders sent to the LabWare system for the laboratory staff to pick up electronically, eliminating paperwork while vastly improving both speed and accuracy of patient demographic entry. Florida was the first state to implement this, and PDSL was employed statewide in 2020. This application allowed BPHL to maintain a 24 – 48-hour turnaround time for testing and reporting, irrespective of the volume of samples.

Dr. Crowe has also participated on several APHL committees or workgroups, including Education and Training, Laboratory Metrics, Knowledge Management, and Informatics.

Amy Miles is the director of the Forensic Toxicology Section at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. During her tenure, she has been nothing short of a leader in public health and a champion for the often-underrepresented field of toxicology. It is nearly impossible to discuss any toxicological application in the field of public health without having her name eventually come up in the conversation. Her input, wisdom, and technical expertise is often highly sought, and it is based on a reputation that has been garnered through the publication of peer-reviewed articles, numerous invitations to speak at national conferences, volunteering as a peer reviewer for high impact journals, outreach into the community, and by being recognized as a subject matter expert on a national scale.

Miles has served as a bridge between forensic toxicology and public health initiatives. In the often-siloed world of science, being an individual who can “talk shop” in a manner that is appropriate for all audiences is a skill not many possess. Through her role on APHL’s Opioid Biosurveillance Taskforce, she helped shape national guidance for the implementation of statewide overdose surveillance, passed along her technical knowledge of forensic applications employing the most cutting-edge technologies, and even co-chaired the taskforce providing Laboratory Data in NAS Surveillance and Polysubstance Biosurveillance. She continued offering input on environmental exposures as a member of APHL’s Environmental Health Committee.

Outside of APHL, Miles has been an active leader in the Society of Forensic Toxicologists, including serving a term as president. She also holds the title of National Resource Toxicologist, which is a title bestowed to individuals chosen to assess the challenges, successes, gaps, and funding issues related to impaired driving testing and data.

Dr. Leibovitz is the chief registered environmental laboratory scientist at the Rhode Island State Health Laboratories. Throughout his nearly 40-year career in public health, Dr. Leibovitz has been an innovative leader on emerging environmental issues. He started in the private sector as a chromatography laboratory supervisor, an inorganic chemistry laboratory manager, and concluded as technical director of a 55-person laboratory. He transitioned to state service at the Rhode Island Health Laboratories where he managed the Quality Assurance and Laboratory Certification programs and became chief of the Environmental Sciences program. He is involved in laboratory safety, budget preparation and interagency communications, and he manages the Food and Water Chemistry, Water Microbiology, Organic Chemistry, Air Pollution Monitoring sections and the state analytical laboratory certification program.

In addition to being a technical expert, Dr. Leibovitz is a visionary. As a member of APHL’s Environmental Laboratory Sciences Committee since its inception in 2006, he has introduced numerous topics and issues impacting public health, including citizen science, harmful algal blooms, remote sensing technology, effluent toxicity testing and more. Dr. Leibovitz also contributed to APHL’s visibility at the national level by serving as a member and chair of the EPA Environmental Laboratory Advisory Board.

Early in his career, Boxrud was a pioneer in the use of pulsed-field gel electrophoreses (PFGE) for molecular subtyping of foodborne disease pathogens nationally and implemented the technique in the MDH-PHL. As PFGE and PulseNet were being implemented nationwide, Boxrud helped other states implement PFGE workflows in their public health laboratories. Since then, he has become a sought-out expert in foodborne disease, giving talks nationally and internationally on his expertise in bacterial subtyping techniques.

Boxrud has always gone the extra mile in working with epidemiologists at MDH to ensure excellent communication between laboratorians and epidemiologists. He has promoted the lab-epi partnership to other states at every opportunity and has collaborated with epidemiologists on numerous special studies and outbreak investigations. He was an advocate for early adoption of whole genome sequencing (WGS) for foodborne pathogens, and, in collaboration with epidemiologists and laboratorians at New York’s Wadsworth Center, lead the implementation of WGS as part of routine surveillance at MDH-PHL and helped create a new model that other public health laboratories would follow.

Boxrud has served multiple terms on the APHL Food Safety Committee and has served on numerous national workgroups including the Culture Independent Diagnostic Testing Workgroup, Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), and PulseNet Steering Committee. Due to his experience and national stature, and the increasing importance of WGS in foodborne disease surveillance, Boxrud was charged with co-authoring Chapter 4 of the 3rd edition of the CIFOR Guidelines (Foodborne Illness Surveillance and Outbreak Detection), which was published in 2020. He is also an author on over 80 peer-reviewed publications. Boxrud is an exemplary leader and advocate for public health laboratories, not just at MDH but nationwide.