Zubair W. Baloch, MD, PhD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received the 2020 H.P. Smith Award by the American Society of Clinical Pathology for Distinguished Pathology Educator. The award was given at this year's ASCP Virtual Annual Meeting. The H.P. Smith Award for Distinguished Pathology Educator is given annually to one ASCP member with a distinguished careers in pathology and laboratory medicine who embraces education, research, and administration, or service to organized pathology. The award honors educators and researchers committed to guiding future generations of pathologists and lab professionals to meaningful careers. The illustrious award was established in 1974 to honor former ASCP president, H.P. Smith, MD, FASCP. Previously, Dr. Baloch was the recipient of the 2015 ASCP President's Award.

Dr. Baloch earned his medical degree from Liaquat Medical University in Hyderabad, Sind, Pakistan. After receiving his PhD in 1991, he went on to do a pathology residency at Hahnemann University Hospital, followed by fellowships in surgical pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and cytopathology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia under the mentorship of Dr. Prabodh K. Gupta, a past president of ASC. He began his career as an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. Over the years, he has written more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in leading pathology journals on the subject of endocrine and head and neck pathology; and he has written book chapters and monographs. Dr. Baloch has delivered numerous lectures, workshops and short courses both at the national and international meetings.

Dr. Baloch has co-authored three books and has served as co-editor of the most recent "Milan System for Reporting Salivary Gland Cytopathology." He has also served as the chair of the terminology and morphologic criteria committee of the 2007 NCI-sponsored Thyroid FNA Initiative, which led to the development of "Bethesda Thyroid FNA Classification Scheme." Dr. Baloch also served on the international panel which recommended the renaming of encapsulated follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma to non-invasive follicular tumor with papillary like nuclear features (NIFTP). Dr. Baloch is co-chief editor of Diagnostic Cytopathology and member of the editorial board of Cancer Cytopathology, Cytojournal, Endocrine Pathology and Journal of American Society of Cytopathology.