Professor Loretta G. Que, MD, chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 Elizabeth A. Rich, MD, Award from the American Thoracic Society (ATS).
The award comes in recognition of Dr. Que’s outstanding contributions to pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, and her dedication, leadership, and commitment to mentoring others in the field.
The Elizabeth A. Rich, MD Award was established in memory of Dr. Rich, a highly respected ATS member, mentor, and role model, who was a trailblazer in lung disease research.
The award is given annually to an exceptional woman in ATS who has demonstrated excellence in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, contributed meaningfully to the ATS, and served as a mentor and leader in the field.
Dr. Que earned her BS at the University of Illinois-Champaign Urbana and her MD at the University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Medicine. Following her Internal Medicine Residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, she obtained her fellowship training in Pulmonary Critical Care at Duke. Dr. Que joined the Pulmonary Critical Care Division faculty after she completed her training and was appointed division chief in 2022.
Dr. Que’s research is focused on redox signaling in the lung with an emphasis on airway inflammation and fibrosis. More recently her group has been examining the impact of oxo-nitrosative stress on regional airway inflammation and remodeling in the lung in patients with asthma and comorbid obesity.
By gaining a firmer understanding of spatial and regional pathogenesis of airway inflammation and remodeling, her ultimate goal is to develop new therapeutics to halt or slow disease progression to help people breathe more freely.
Dr. Que will be recognized at the Women’s Forum during ATS 2025 on Monday, May 19 in San Francisco.
She has been a member of the American Thoracic Society since 1994. With clinical expertise in asthma and COPD, Dr. Que currently serves on the American Thoracic Society committee for proficiency standards and pulmonary function testing.