V37 N3 / 2022 

©2022 American Medical Writers Association. All rights reserved.  
ISSN 2163-5315

AMWAJournal.org     40

The Harold Swanberg Distinguished Service Award, named 

in honor of one of the founders of AMWA, is presented to an 

active AMWA member who has made distinguished con-

tributions to medical communication or rendered unusual 

and distinguished services to the medical profession.

This year’s Swanberg recipient is Julia Forjanic Klapproth, 

PhD. Julia has made distinguished contributions to the 

medical communication profession.

 After receiving her PhD in Developmental 

Neurobiology, Julia Forjanic Klapproth started her career 

as a medical writer in the pharmaceutical industry at 

Hoechst Marion Roussel (later Sanofi) in 1997. In 2002, 

Julia co-founded Trilogy Writing & Consulting, a company 

specializing in providing medical writing of regulatory doc-

umentation. In addition to company management activi-

ties, she continues to contribute to client projects, writing a 

wide array of clinical documents.

 She has also been President of the European Medical 

Writers Association (EMWA) twice (2001–2002, 2007–2009) 

and is an experienced speaker and trainer of medical writ-

ers, regularly running workshops for EMWA, giving train-

ing for AMWA, and pharmaceutical companies around the 

world. This training covers medical writing topics, inter-

personal relationships, and effective communication skills. 

Julia has also been an AMWA Journal contributor, member 

of the Medical Writing Executives Advisory Council and 

Value of Medical Writing Working Group committees, con-

ference presenter, volunteer since 2018, and current pro-

fessional member (since 2017; Carolinas Chapter).

 As part of the senior management team at Trilogy, Julia 

supports both EMWA and AMWA not only by giving her 

time to teach, but by encouraging and supporting Trilogy 

writers to attend the conferences and become active within 

the organizations themselves. Julia is a staunch supporter 

of medical writers and has worked tirelessly to promote 

their standing by regularly presenting and writing about 

the value that strategic medical writing brings to clini-

cal development and campaigning for better and more 

focused training and development specifically aimed at 

medical writers.

 For 25 years, she has contributed her expertise in writ-

ing and coordinating all manner of regulatory documents.  

She has authored articles on a broad range of medical writ-

ing topics.

 In her efforts to promote the value of medical writing 

and train both medical writers and clinical authoring  

teams on good writing concepts, she has presented at  

international conferences and training events on a wide 

array of topics.

 Julia’s long-standing service demonstrates her pas-

sion for promoting excellence in medical communication. 

AMWA is proud to recognize Julia as the recipient of the 

2021 Harold Swanberg Distinguished Service Award.

Sarah Dobney / 2021–2022 Director-At-Large and Chair, Member Awards Committee

Harold Swanberg Distinguished Service Award

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