Susanna Naggie receives award from Chair Dr. Kathleen Cooney
Susanna Naggie, MD, has received the Duke Department of Medicine’s 2026 Research Mentoring Award, recognizing her work developing the next generation of academic scientists and helping early-career investigators build independent research careers.
The award recognizes Department of Medicine faculty members who have demonstrated success guiding researchers as they transition from trainees to funded junior faculty or helping junior investigators achieve independent research funding.
Kara Wegermann, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, nominated Naggie for the award and credited the mentorship with changing the trajectory of Wegermann’s research career.
When Wegermann joined the Duke faculty, Wegermann wanted to continue pursuing translational research but had not yet identified a specific research niche within metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD. Naggie recognized an opportunity to connect that expertise with a multicenter research effort studying MASLD in people with HIV and offered to mentor Wegermann in developing the work into a research program.
Under Naggie’s mentorship, Wegermann has developed expertise and collaborations across disciplines, identified research questions at the intersection of HIV and MASLD, and begun building those questions into an independent research program.
The mentorship has already contributed to important career milestones. With Naggie as a co-mentor, Wegermann received a Junior Faculty Development Award from the American College of Gastroenterology. Naggie also serves as co-primary mentor for Wegermann’s NIH K award application.
In the nomination, Wegermann also highlighted Naggie’s emphasis on the broader development of an independent scientific career. Beyond providing feedback on grants and manuscripts, Naggie has helped Wegermann identify research questions worth pursuing, consider where the work could have the greatest impact and connect individual projects to longer-term research goals.
The Research Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members whose mentorship helps promising investigators develop the scientific foundation, collaborations and skills needed to advance toward research independence.