At its semiannual meeting on Wednesday, OMRF named Sarah E. Yauk and J. Michael Kelly, M.D., to its board of directors.
Yauk lives in Buffalo, Okla., where she has been a Barlow Education Management Services consultant since 2011. She runs federal programs management for six schools and also trains school administrators and teachers in Tulsa Model Evaluation Method and McREL trainings. She has also worked as an adjunct professor at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
Prior to her time with Barlow Education Management Services, Yauk worked for the Oklahoma State Department of Education as a regional accreditation officer for Northwestern Oklahoma, reviewing reports and documentation onsite for 62 schools and three career tech centers in 15 counties. She also served as principal of Buffalo Public Schools after serving the district as an elementary counselor and federal programs director.
Yauk graduated from Oklahoma State University and earned her master’s of education in guidance and counseling from Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
Kelly, who resides in Indian Wells, Calif., is a retired plastic surgeon from Oklahoma City. Kelly has board certifications from the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, as well as memberships in the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Kelly moved to Oklahoma City in 1975 when he was recruited to run the plastic surgery program at the University of Oklahoma, which he did until he established a private practice in Oklahoma City.
Kelly earned his medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. He completed his residency at the University of Virginia before doing a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. He left Johns Hopkins to become a staff physician at the Ochsner Medical Center clinic and attending physician at Tulane University until moving to Oklahoma.
“We are extremely pleased to add two such high-quality, accomplished individuals to our board of directors,” said OMRF President Stephen Prescott, M.D. “Their long, successful careers ensure that they will work tirelessly on OMRF’s behalf as we continue to grow and thrive. We know they share our dedication to go the extra mile in our pursuit of excellence.”
Board members also reelected Oklahoma City attorney Len Cason as chair. Cason is a partner at the law firm of Hartzog, Conger, Cason & Neville and has served as OMRF’s board chair since 2001.
At the meeting, OMRF’s scientific advisory board also delivered its evaluation of OMRF’s Cardiovascular Biology Research Program. The board, which is made up of six senior scientists from institutions across the country, conducted an evaluation of the program, which studies blood and lymphatic vessel function, blood coagulation and processes underlying heart disease.
“You have a great team of researchers in this program,” Thomas Tedder, Ph.D., chair of the scientific advisory board and a professor of immunology at Duke University School of Medicine, told OMRF’s board at the meeting. “They are a dynamic, smart, interactive group.”
“It’s a unique model that’s here,” said advisory board member Gilbert White, M.D., executive vice president for research at the Blood Center of Wisconsin. “This is one of my models for how a research institute should be run.”
