Dr. Agresta received his Bachelor in Engineering, with a concentration in Biomedical Engineering, from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1986. He received his Medical Degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School in 1990. He finished a residency in Family Medicine at the University of Connecticut/St. Francis Residency Program in 1993, and was in private practice in Hartford for several years.

Dr. Agresta has been the Director of Predoctoral Education for the Department of Family Medicine for the last ten years. He has been the Principle Investigator on three federally funded Health Resource and Services Administration training grants for primary care. The grants have focused on the patient-centered use of technology to practice Evidence Based Medicine in teaching medical students and community physicians. This has included the creation of a software product that mimics the use of an electronic medical record to teach students how to integrate this technology into practice, the use of handheld computers, the creation of virtual patients to be viewed in this environment, and much more. He has helped to define a field that has "grown up" during the past decade; that is, the integration of information technology in several forms into the clinical care of patients and adaptations of that technology to enhance the training of medical students and residents.

He has widely presented his work at STFM, AAMC and WONCA, and has been an invited panelist for the International Meeting on Medical Simulation. He has published works regarding the use of standardized families and the patient-centered use of technology in medical education.

He has served in a number of leadership positions in STFM, such as Chair of the Steering Committee for Predoctoral Education, and most recently serving on the Communications Committee. He has been an invited member of the Virtual Patient working group of the AAMC where he helped to establish the Consortium on Medical Education and Technology (COMET). He has represented Family Medicine on a task force for the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Dr. Agresta served as the Associate Director of Continuing Medical Education at the University of Connecticut from 2000 - 2006 during which time he helped develop the process for web-based CME for UCHC. He was also on the selection and implementation team for integrating an electronic health record at the University of Connecticut/St. Francis Family Medicine Residency Program in 2003.

Dr. Agresta is now in a distance education training program for Health Informatics and is in the process of assuming a larger role in Informatics for the Department of Family Medicine. His goal is to help further the patient-centered use of technology in clinical care and education.

He is extremely proud of his wife, Miwako Ohta-Agresta, who is a certified nurse and midwife in Bristol, Connecticut, his daughter Hanako, who is eight years old, and his son Michio, who is six years old.

Dr. Agresta was nominated for this award by Robert A. Cushman MD, Professor and Chair of Family Medicine at the University of Connecticut and St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center located in Hartford.