By Amy Widner
José R. Romero, M.D., of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers to recognize scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. Romero is one of 442 scientists nationwide receiving the honor for the year 2020. They will be announced in Science magazine and recognized Feb. 15 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle.
An internationally known expert on enteroviruses and childhood immunization, Romero is being honored in the Medical Sciences category for his efforts in controlling infectious diseases; particularly enterovirus research and service on national panels the ensure safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
Romero is chief of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Section in the Department of Pediatrics in the UAMS College of Medicine. He is a professor of pediatrics at UAMS and holds the Horace C. Cabe Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million people. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world.