Dr. Steven Jonas, Professor of Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and a prolific author on public and personal health topics, received the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Yale School of Public Health. Susan Addiss, Chair of the Alumni Award Committee, congratulates Dr. Jonas at the June ceremony in New Haven, Conn. Credit: Joann Wilcox

Steven Jonas, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., Professor of Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and Professor, Graduate Program in Public Health, Stony Brook University, received the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award in June from the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Jonas, a prolific author and researcher in health policy analysis, preventive medicine and public health, and personal health and wellness, began his academic career more than 40 years ago, shortly after earning a Master of Public Health Degree from Yale in 1967.

The award, established by the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health Board of Directors in 1988, recognizes the contributions and achievements of alumni with distinguished careers in public health as outstanding teachers, researchers, or practitioners. Awardees are considered to have “achieved or contributed beyond normal expectation with service to society that is continuous and sustaining and fosters the development of new directions/initiatives or strengthens important priorities in public health practice and academic public health.”

Dr. Jonas, a member of the SBU School of Medicine faculty since 1971, has authored, co-authored, edited, and co-edited over 30 books, and published more than 135 papers in scientific journals. Board certified in Preventive Medicine, he has practiced or taught at the New York City Departments of Health and Hospitals, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y., Stony Brook University, and elsewhere since 1966.

Educated and trained at Yale by Dr. E. Richard Weinerman and colleagues in health policy analysis, an example of his work in that realm is Jonas & Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States. When it was first published in 1977 by the Springer Publishing Co. of New York City, it was the first of its kind. A current book, for which Dr. Jonas is co-author, is ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine tm: A Clinician's Guide to the Exercise Prescription, the official textbook for ACSM's Exercise is Medicine® program. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the American Medical Athletics Association Journal. 

A Harvard Medical School graduate, Dr. Jonas is an elected Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine (London), the American College of Preventive Medicine, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the American Public Health Association.

The recipient of numerous honors in his field, Dr. Jonas has received the Founders Medal of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (1982), the Duncan Clark Career Achievement Award of the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (2006), and the Faculty Recognition Award of the Graduate Program in Public Health, Stony Brook University (2008). 

He has also published numerous articles and has had several regular columns in the lay press including his current one, in USA-Triathlon Life, primarily on exercise and sports. He is a triathlete in his 28th season, with 210-plus multi-sport races under his belt, and a certified ski instructor. His personal website is www.ordinarymortals.net. 

 Dr. Jonas lives in Port Jefferson, is engaged to Chezna Newman of New York City and has two children, Jacob Jonas and Lillian Wain, and future step-son, Mark Newman.

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