Crystal Drive resident Chris Cerci, a career firefighter with the McKeesport Fire Department and a part-time Peters Township firefighter, placed third in the world in his division at the Firefighter Combat Challenge world championships in Las Vegas in October. The sport is broken down into three categories: individual, tandem and relay competition. Individual competitors run the entire course alone. In tandem competition, two athletes divide the course in half. Groups of three to five people can run the course in the relay category. Cerci usually competes individually, but occasionally runs tandem. He is the 2007 U.S. Grand National Champion. He placed third in 2009 and fourth in 2010 at the national competition.
Chris F. Kemerer, Hoodridge Drive, is one of only three people worldwide to be inducted as a Distinguished Fellow in the Information Systems Society (ISS) for 2013. Kemerer publishes a number of influential research papers on the management of information systems and software engineering economics. He was honored based on the impact of his publications, his editorial leadership and his mentoring of doctoral students and young researchers. Kemerer is the David M. Roderick Professor of Information Systems at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science.
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[2]Vujevich Dermatology Associates, located at 100 N. Wren Drive across from St. Clair Hospital, has added two new physicians to the practice. Dr. Elizabeth Juhas Froelich is a pediatric dermatologist and Dr. Heather Orkwis, practices general and cosmetic dermatology, working with lasers, fillers, and Botox. They join a medical staff of nine, including the practice’s founder, Dr. Marion Vujevich, and his son, Justin, both dermatologists.
Teresa Cole, Moreland Drive, a regional safety director with First Student school transportation company, has received the National Safety Council’s Distinguished Service to Safety Award. recognizing her a long professional commitment to safety and health. Cole is past president of the American Society of Safety Engineers in Tennessee and Pennsylvania and has served on the Pennsylvania School Bus Association Board of Directors. She is the chair of the NSC transportation division and serves on the board of delegates for the council, and serves on the Safety Advisory Committee for West Virginia University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
[3]Mt. Lebanon residents Matthew Cooper, D.O. and Ediri Montoya, M.D. are part of the team of board-certified physicians, registered nurses and radiology technicians who will be staffing the new St. Clair Urgent Care, opening Monday, January 13, in the St. Clair Hospital Outpatient Center Village Square. Building upon the expertise of the hospital’s emergency room, which is nationally recognized for patient satisfaction, the hospital is extending that expertise to the new urgent care. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on major holidays), 365 days a year. The telephone number is 412-942-8800.
Mt. Lebanon High School students Katie Brown, Lani Cupo, Daphne Schlesinger, Darren Samuels, Annalise Tolley, Abbu Xie and social studies teacher Peter DiNardo were honored by the Pennsylvania Council for Social Studies for their work on their Advanced Placement U.S. History Culminating Project. Last spring, DiNardo changed the traditional final research paper for his classes into a series of programs where students focused on an event or issue that occurred between 1954 and 1989. The students presented their final projects in three different formats: team-teaching, oral history-based documentary or research paper panel presentation. DiNardo wanted the students to share their work with the community so the 38 class presentations took place at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library where all sessions were open to the public. Tolley and Xie showed their documentary film, Kent State: 67 Shots that Pierced the Nation, Katie Brown presented on Emmett Till; Lani Cupo on the Attica Riots and Daphne Schlesinger on the American Indian Movement. The students were featured in the October 2013 issue of mtl.
Emergency room physician Bruce MacLeod, Mohican Drive, was sworn in as the 164th president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. MacLeod, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, is medical director for emergency medicine at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh. In the past he has been a clinical associate professor with the University of Pittsburgh Department of Emergency Medicine. He also served as chairman of the department of emergency medicine at UPMC Mercy Hospital from 1993 to 2010. Prior to his election as Medical Society president, he served as the chair of the organization’s board from 2003 to 2009. He also served two terms on the board of trustees representing hospital-based specialty physicians.