The Art of Listening Award honors a caring, receptive health professional in the lives of individuals and families living with genetic conditions.

Joann Bodurtha, MD, MPH is a Professor of Human and Molecular Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) with joint faculty appointments in the Departments of Pediatrics, Obstetrics-Gynecology, and Epidemiology and Community Health. Throughout her career, she has worked to make genetics grow to help people and form communities more welcoming to people and families with disabilities.

She graduated from Swarthmore College with a Biology degree in 1974 and received her graduate degrees from Yale University in 1979. Her medical school thesis was based on research she did with boys with muscular dystrophy during a year as a Luce Scholar at the Nagasaki University of Medicine. She received excellent mentoring from exemplary geneticists during a pediatrics residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and later a medical genetics fellowship at VCU. She worked as a USPHS physician on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota from 1982 to 1984.

Joann helped start the Masters in Genetic Counseling program at VCU in 1990 and the VaLEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) program in 1995. Over 200 trainees have completed these programs. She is particularly proud of the family mentorship program at VaLEND that pairs trainees with families of people who have a neurodevelopment disability. She served on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Native American Child Health for 10 years and has been fortunate to be recognized as the team leader for a number of awards, including the Richmond YMCA Woman of the Year in Science and Medicine in 1997, the VCU School of Medicine’s first Innovation in Teaching award in 1999, a State Council of Higher Education Outstanding Teacher in 2006, and the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation Sherry Kohlenberg Award in 2006. From 2000 to 2003, she was the President of the WISDM (Women in Science, Dentistry, and Medicine) organization at VCU.

She currently helps lead the clinical genetics program at VCU and sees about 500 patients and families with genetic conditions each year. She has been the director of the VaLEND program since it began, co-director of the BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health) program, chair of the Statewide Genetics Advisory Committee, principal investigator of a National Cancer Institute research grant on the effects of incorporating genetic risk assessment in annual clinic visits, and vice chair of the Chickahominy Health Advisory Board. She started two endowments at VCU in memory of two former genetic counselors. She continues to try to help those missing at the table find a voice and work to make communities more welcoming to those with disabilities.

Joann has survived a copperhead bite, has been happily married to Dr. Tom Smith for 26 years, and is the mother of a delightful daughter, Anna, who surpasses her genetic endowment.