News

LDI’s Hoag Levins Honored With Penn’s Models of Excellence Award

Cited for Decade of Multimedia Work Elevating Penn’s Health Services Researchers

April 27, 2023

By:

Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD

Print:

Hoag Levins, LDI’s Editor of Digital Publications, has received a 2023 University of Pennsylvania Models of Excellence award for his multi-media reporting and production that has spotlighted the work of Penn’s health services researchers for the past decade. In his decade-plus tenure at Penn, Hoag Levins has consistently demonstrated a deep and long-lasting commitment to elevating LDI and Penn. He celebrates and amplifies the work of many people at Penn, approaching his work with curiosity, energy, and integrity. His enormous multi-media catalog of work is a testament to his creativity, productivity, and dedication to elevating Penn’s community and research.

The award was presented April 26 at Penn’s annual Models of Excellence ceremony in Irvine Auditorium, hosted by University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill.

Created in 1999 and managed by the Penn Human Resources Department, the Models of Excellence Awards recognize university staff members for “initiative, leadership, increased efficiency and a deep commitment to service.”

“You know the one-person-band concept—a base drum on your back, cymbals on your head, an accordion between your arms, a tambourine on your knee, and a harmonica in your mouth?” said David Asch, who hired Levins in 2011, when he was Executive Director of Penn LDI. “If there were an equivalent in scientific communication it would be Hoag Levins. Hoag Levins is the one-man-scientific communications band, and he plays each instrument with perfect pitch.”

Prior to his arrival at Penn, Levins was an award-winning former investigative journalist, working for 40 years as a reporter and editor in newspapers, magazines, radio, and digital media companies. He was a staff reporter for both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. He went on to become the Executive Editor of Editor & Publisher, the weekly journal of the U.S. newspaper industry, was a Senior Editor at Advertising Age magazine, and Executive Editor of Capitol News Connection, a Washington, D.C., newsroom funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that produced Capitol Hill news content for four dozen middle-market public radio stations.

Levins’ media production projects at LDI have focused, in particular, on the research of LDI investigators who are documenting inequities in health and health care among marginalized populations and developing interventions to mitigate these inequities.