Named in honor of Dr. Thomas T. Yoshikawa and his wife, Catherine—who together served the AGS and the geriatrics community for more than two decades—the Yoshikawa Award will offer recognition and financial support to emerging eldercare scholars who represent the early promise of the Yoshikawas’ own illustrious career. The award, which includes a $2,000 honorarium, has been supported through 2032 thanks to generous support from AGS members and countless friends and colleagues of the Dr. and Mrs. Yoshikawa.
2025 Recipient: Nancy Schoenborn, MD, MHS
Dr. Nancy Schoenborn, MD, MHS is the 2025 recipient of the Thomas & Catherine Yoshikawa Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in Clinical Investigation.
She is a national leader in the study of individualized care of medically complex older adults that considers each person’s health status and personal preferences. Her pioneering work has identified the disconnect between common concepts and language used in scientific research and guidelines (such as life expectancy) and patient perspectives which then negatively impact care. She has, in turn, bridged this disconnect by studying and incorporating patient preferences for how to communicate sensitive topics such as life expectancy and discontinuation of preventive services. Her work has examined decision-making from the clinician and the patient perspectives and has focused on the critical role of communication in facilitating patient-centered care. She is currently leading an interdisciplinary project to study how to more broadly message about the harms of cancer over screening to the public as well as the ethics of using persuasion in health communication.
Dr. Schoenborn has been widely recognized for her contributions to geriatrics and aging research. The National Institute on Aging (NIA) awarded her a R03 grant (2015-2018) for early-career specialists transitioning to aging research (GEMSSTAR) and a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (2018-2024). She was among the inaugural cohort of Multiple Chronic Conditions Scholars in 2019, sponsored by the Healthcare Systems Research Network and the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independent Centers AGING Initiative. She also was named a T. Franklin Williams Scholar by the AGS Health in Aging Foundation and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (2015-2018). Her achievements within the American Geriatrics Society include receiving a New Investigator Award (2016), being honored as the Outstanding Junior Investigator of the Year (2019, and receiving Best Paper and Best Poster Awards (2022). Hopkins awarded her the Clinician Scientist Award in 2016.
Past Recipients of the Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Outstanding Scientific Achievement for Clinical Investigation Award
2025 Nancy Schoenborn, MD, MHS
2024 C. Barrett Bowling, MD, MSPH
2023 Dae Kim, MD, MPH, ScD
2022 Amy S. Kelly, MD, MSHS
2020 Alexander Smith, MD, MS, MPH
2019 Amy Kind, MD, PhD
2018 Heather Whitson, MD, MHS
2017 Sei Lee, MD, MAS
2016 Mara Schonberg, MD, MPH
2015 Rebecca Sudore, MD
2014 XinQi Dong, MD, MPH
2013 Cynthia J. Brown, MD, MSPH
2012 Malaz A. Boustani, MD, MPH
2011 Catherine A. Sarkisian, MD, MSPH
2010 Cynthia M. Boyd, MD, MPH
2009 Louise C. Walter, MD
2008 R. Sean Morrison, MD
2007 Eric A. Coleman, MD, MPH
2006 David J. Cassaret, MD, MS
2005 Joe Verghese, MBBS, MS
2004 Terri R. Fried, MD
2003 Edward Marcantonio, MD, Boston, MA
2002 James T. Pacala, MD, Minneapolis, MN
2001 Thomas M. Gill, MD, New Haven, CT
2001 Greg A. Sachs, MD, Chicago, IL
2000 Elizabeth Capezuti, PhD, RN