The speaker for the Bradford Area High School graduation is an
accomplished doctor with many degrees.
Dr. Nancy Abbey Collop, a 1976 graduate of BAHS, will
undoubtedly encourage students to chose careers and lifestyles
wisely Thursday evening at 7 p.m. during the ceremony in the high
school auditorium as they head out into the world.
Collop is currently an associate professor of medicine in the
Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Md. She is also the medical director of
the Johns Hopkins Hospital Sleep Disorders Laboratory.
Her research interests include sleep-disordered breathing and
standards for polysomnography.
She has also held academic positions at the Medical University
of South Carolina and the University of Mississippi.
Collop authored 48 scientific papers, 25 abstracts and 34 book
chapters and review articles. She is board certified in Internal
Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine, Critical Care Medicine and Sleep
Medicine.
While a student at BAHS, Collop was a member of the girl’s
basketball team and was state runner-up in 1976 and was the track
team MVP the same year. She also served as the president of the
National Honor Society.
She went on to attend Edinboro State University in Edinboro from
1976 to 1980. While at Edinboro she played on the women’s
basketball team for two years, was the first graduate of the All
College Honors program and the recipient of the Dean Weller Award
for Outstanding Student in the Health Sciences.
Collop graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of science
degree in biology. She then attended Pennsylvania State University
College of Medicine in Hershey from 1980 to 1984 and obtained her
medical degree.
She was awarded the Roche Clinical Psychiatry Research Award and
was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. She did an
internal medicine internship and residency at the Medical College
of Virginia in Richmond, Va., from 1984 to 1987 then went on to
complete a pulmonary/critical care fellowship at the University of
Florida in Gainesville, Fla., from 1987 to 1990. She was a
recipient of the Research Fellowship Award from the American Lung
Association of Florida.
Collop has received a number of awards, including “Best Doctors
in America,” the Al Soffer Award for Editorial Excellence (American
College of Chest Physicians), Distinguished Alumna for Natural
Sciences (Edinboro University) and the Helmut S. Schmidt Award
(American Board of Sleep Medicine).
She has served on the American Board of Sleep Medicine Board of
Directors since 1998 and is the current president. She also serves
for the American Board of Internal Medicine on the new Sleep
Medicine Examination Committee as well as a pulmonary SEP
committee. She is a member of the board of directors for the
American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a past regent-at-large of
the American College of Chest Physicians Board of Regents. She is
an associate editor of the journal Chest and past editor-in-chief
of MDConsult for Respiratory and Critical Care. She serves on a
number of national committees for sleep medicine.
This is only one of several speaking engagements she has
completed as she has lectured throughout the United States and
internationally including in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala,
Puerto Rico and Barbados.
Collop lives in Baltimore with her husband, Thomas, and her two
children, Paul and Marie. Her parents, Barbara and William Abbey,
live in Custer City. Her niece, Katlyn Nelson, is one of the
members of the senior graduating class.
