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Gail V. Flores, PhD / 2020–2021 AMWA President

2021 President’s Award Recipient:  
Dikran Toroser, PhD, CMPP

The President's Award is given by the AMWA President to a 

member of AMWA who has made distinctive contributions to 

the association at the chapter or national level. The nominee 

must have been an AMWA member for 10 years and cannot 

have served on the Executive Committee.

It is my great privilege to present this year’s President’s Award 

to Dikran Toroser, PhD, CMPP. Dikran will receive the award 

in October in conjunction with the 2021 Medical Writing & 

Communication Conference.

 Dikran is currently a Director and Publication Planning 

Group Lead at Takeda in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has 

been an AMWA member since 2008 and has been a diligent, 

hard-working volunteer ever since. I was lucky to get to know 

him when we volunteered together for the former Pacific 

Southwest Chapter. Dikran wrote a regular column in the 

chapter newsletter and spoke at chapter events. At the  

national level, he served on the committee to recruit  

volunteers and support members to form the new Pacific 

Southwest Chapter and served for 2 terms on the Nominating 

Committee to create the slate of national AMWA officers. He 

has also presented posters and led roundtables at annual 

AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conferences. Most 

recently, we served together on the Writing Committee for the 

AMWA-EMWA-ISMPP Joint Position Statement on Medical 

Publications, Preprints, and Peer Review as representatives of 

AMWA, and he has presented on the statement to our various 

sister organizations. Throughout his years as an AMWA vol-

unteer, Dikran has been analytical, thoughtful, and fair, not to 

mention overwhelmingly kind and gracious.

 Dikran has also served as an adjunct faculty member and 

consulting director for the University of California San Diego 

Extension Medical Writing programs for 6 years and is an active 

member of the International Society for Medical Publication 

Professionals (ISMPP).

 Please join me in congratulating Dikran on this well-

deserved honor!

The Golden Apple Award is presented to a member of AMWA to 

honor consistent, outstanding workshop leadership.

This year’s Golden Apple recipient is Aaron Bernstein, PhD. 

The Member Awards Committee was impressed with Aaron’s 

long-term commitment to leading workshops for AMWA and 

ability to keep his workshops engaging and his material timely 

and relevant.

 Aaron has taught 31 workshops since 1998. He has been 

the sole leader of 2 regulatory-focused workshops, “Regulatory 

Aspects of the Drug Development Process” and “Current 

Trends in Drug Regulations,” and leads workshops at annual 

conferences and conducts onsite training.

 Aaron is a founding member and past President of the 

European Medical Writers Association. He is a primary  

contributor to the development of the CORE Reference tool and 

website, a detailed companion to the International Council for 

Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals 

for Human Use E3 guideline on Clinical Study Reports. He is a 

co-author of peer-reviewed publications on the topic of clinical 

trial transparency and the production of clinical study reports.

 Please join AMWA in congratulating Aaron. He will be 

acknowledged at the 2021 Medical Writing & Communication 

Conference, to be held virtually October 27-29.

The Member Awards Committee members were Elizabeth Brown, 

Elise Eller (chair), Andrea Gwosdow, Karen Klein, Mary Knatterud, 

Susan Krug (ex officio), Marianne Mallia, and Kristina Wasson-

Blader. Diane Noland from AMWA Headquarters provided  

excellent support.

The Golden Apple Award: 
Aaron Bernstein, PhD

Elise Eller, PhD / 2020-2021 Director-at-Large and Chair and Board Liaison,  
Member Awards Committee

128    AMWA Journal / V36 N3 / 2021 / amwa.org