The L.C. Tao Educator of the Year Award is presented to a Pathologist in recognition of his/her meritorious service, and contributions to the field of cytopathology education. The award is presented during the Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology Companion Meeting held during the annual meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology.
Nominees for this award should have demonstrated significant contributions to the field of cytopathology education, including but not limited to: active participation in, or development of, exemplary training programs and educational activities at the state, regional and national levels. Any member of the Society may submit nominations to the Award Committee for consideration.
The 2024 L.C. Tao Educator of the Year Award
Dr. Dina R. Mody
Professor of Pathology and Genomic Medicine
Dr. Mody is the medical director of the cytopathology laboratory at Houston’s Methodist Hospital and was the Cytopathology Fellowship program director till June 2017. She is professor of Pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and adjunct professor at Texas A&M University. She was also the medical director of Bioreference/GenPath cytology lab in Texas for 12 years till July 2022
Dr. Mody is a past president of American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) in 2007-08 and has been a member of the executive board of the ASC. She has received the Papanicolaou Award, the President’s Award and Excellence in Education award from that society.
Her participation with the College of American Pathologists (CAP) has also been extensive, including chairing the cytopathology resource committee and Anatomic Pathology cluster and other activities, for which she has received the Lansky Award for her leadership in cytopathology in 2002, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 and the Jean and Gene Herbek Humanitarian award in 2019. She also received the Harlan J Spjut award of the Houston Society of Clinical Pathologists and several years of residents and fellows teaching awards. In January 2019 she received the John J Andujar citation of merit award from Texas Society of Pathologists. On Feb 1 2019 she was awarded the first Shobha Grover Oration medal/award of the Indian Academy of Cytologists, Maharashtra chapter at its Annual meeting in Mumbai. In 2024 she received the Dr LC Tao Educator award from the Papanicolaou society of Cytopathology at the USCAP meeting.
Dr. Mody is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology with subspecialty certification in cytopathology.
She finished two terms as the editor in chief of the Journal of The American Society of Cytopathology (2017-2022) and is on the editorial boards of several cytology and pathology journals and was on the cytopathology question writing committee of the American Board of Pathology (2011-2017). She chaired the Scientific program Committee of the American Society of Cytopathology from 2012-2014 which is responsible for the three annual scientific meetings. She was also the invited Speaker for the International Academy of Cytology Tutorials from 2015-2019 and has lectured on topics of cancer diagnosis by cytology and small biopsies and HPV testing. She co directs the biennial Cytopathology and small biopsy update in the Texas medical center which is held at Houston Methodist in Feb or March.
Dr. Mody has over 125 peer reviewed publications and over 250 presentations, abstracts and invited lectures at loco regional, national and international level. In March 2014, she published a comprehensive 800 page cytopathology text book: Diagnostic Pathology Cytopathology by Amirsys (now Elsevier), which, in its 2nd edition (2018) was selected by the British Medical Association Awards committee as the top 5 books in Pathology and was a finalist for the best book award in 2018. The 3rd edition of the book was published in September 2022. She has also coedited the 3rd edition of Clinical Cytopathology, published in Nov 2017 with her mentor, Dr Ramzy.
