2025 JOSEPH W. ST. GEME, JR. LEADERSHIP AWARD RECIPIENT ANNOUNCED
McLean, VA – The Federation of Pediatric Organizations (FOPO) is pleased to announce that Dr. James M. Perrin has been named the recipient of the 2025 FOPO Joseph W. St. Geme, Jr. Leadership Award. This prestigious honor recognizes Dr. Perrin’s major impact on child and family health and wellbeing, as well as his influential research that has shaped improved policies and programs in child health. Dr. Perrin, an emeritus professor of pediatrics and academic general pediatrician at Mass General for Children (MGfC) and Harvard Medical School, is widely respected for his visionary leadership and commitment to advancing care for children and youth with special health care needs.
Dr. Perrin founded the Division of General Pediatrics at MGfC. The division, a long-time partner in the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship, trained numerous fellows who have had distinguished careers in pediatric education and research. In his prior tenure at Vanderbilt, he also founded its division of general pediatrics and, with a joint appointment in the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, he collaborated with economists, psychologists, and legal scholars in policy research. He and the late Nicholas Hobbs led a major study of chronic health conditions among children and their families, work that fostered much research in this area and new policies at Federal and state levels.
Dr. Perrin’s research has spanned several childhood chronic health conditions, including asthma, hemophilia, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders, as well as the changing epidemiology of childhood chronic disease. His teams conducted seminal studies of children’s hospitalization patterns, children’s health insurance, and public support programs for families with children with chronic conditions – most notably the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Recent efforts to improve Medicaid for children and adolescents in Massachusetts and across the nation continue to drive transformative change in public health.
Dr. Perrin led the national Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network clinical center and the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health, initiatives that have significantly advanced evidence-based healthcare for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. His team also contributed to national policy through evidence summaries for the HHS Secretary’s Committee on Heritable Disorders and Genetic Diseases in Newborns and Children. Dr. Perrin’s distinguished career is reflected in over 300 published research papers, chapters, and commentaries.
Dr. Perrin has been active in several FOPO organizations. He was president of the Ambulatory (now Academic) Pediatric Association and the founding editor of the APA journal, Academic Pediatrics, which he led for 10 years. With the APA, he has received the Public Policy, Research, and George Armstrong Awards.
He was president of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2014, having served also as chair of the Committee on Children with Disabilities, co-chair of the first ADHD practice guidelines committee, co-chair of the Task Force on Pediatric Practice Change, and member of the Committee on Genetics. He currently chairs the AAP Committee on Child Health Financing, focusing especially on Medicaid and CHIP. He was a member of the APS Advocacy Committee. A former board member of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, he received its annual lecture award in 2014. His accolades include a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, the Vince Hutchins Award from Family Voices, a Title V Lifetime Achievement Award from the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Arnold Capute Award from the AAP.
Dr Perrin has served on numerous advisory boards and national committees, including the Agency for Health Research and Quality National Advisory Council, the National Commission on Childhood Disability, and the Disability Policy Panel of the National Academy of Social Insurance. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and currently co-chairs its primary care special interest group. A former member of the National Academies’ Board on Children, Youth, and Families, he has also served on several National Academies’ committees and workshops on maternal and child health, health care reform, health care quality, long-term care, disability, care for people with IDD, and children’s mental health. He recently co-chaired a committee on child and adolescent health care transformation, with its report, Launching Lifelong Health. He has served on the boards of Family Voices, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (University of North Carolina), and the Institute for Exceptional Care.
He graduated from Harvard College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, where he met a fellow student, Ellen Coser, who has been the love of his life and partner for over five decades. Attracted to Rochester for residency by the leadership of Bob Haggerty, he had a research fellowship at Rochester, learning from Haggerty’s Mt. Hope Research Group, a major early group in community health science.
After internship in Rochester (and before returning there), Perrin spent two years in the Public Health Service, in what is now the Health Services and Research Administration, focusing on rural primary care programs. That experience led to his leadership, in Rochester, of a small, university migrant health program and his team’s work to transform it into a community health center in rural communities between Rochester and Buffalo, which has now grown into an active FQHC serving several communities in rural upstate New York. The center’s governing board always actively included patients and families in leadership positions.
Perrin has been a strong advocate for children, youth, and families, working to learn from their experiences and develop strategies to improve the care and support they have, as well as to engage them in organizing and overseeing care systems. His research and advocacy, including work with several pediatric organizations, has helped strengthen family financial wellbeing through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for children with major disabilities. His long-term and ongoing work aims to make Medicaid and CHIP the strong investment necessary to support best growth and development and build a strong workforce for the nation.
The Federation of Pediatric Organizations is comprised of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academic Pediatric Association, American Pediatric Society, American Board of Pediatrics, Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs, Association of Pediatric Program Directors, and Society for Pediatric Research. The purpose of the federation is to promote optimal health for children by building on the efforts and expertise of the member organizations, and on the relationships between the member organizations to accomplish shared goals.
