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Dear School of Medicine Community,
I want to thank everyone who supported, attended, and participated in our Celebrating Diversity dinner this past Saturday. It was an amazing celebration, and we had over 350 attendees, a record number of guests for this event! The current recipient of the Dean Emeritus Donald E. Wilson Endowed Scholarship, Kaela Kuitchoua, gave an inspiring address and reminded us all why we must continue to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. I’m proud to announce the two awardees for 2023: Tonya Webb, PhD received the Dean’s Faculty Award for Diversity and Inclusion, and Sharon Henry, MD received the Dean’s Alumni Award for Diversity and Inclusion. Congratulations and a sincere thank you to them both for all their work and success in advancing diversity and inclusion in academic medicine.
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I am very excited to announce another new addition to our leadership team. Bradley Maron, MD will join us in May as Co-Director of the University of Maryland – Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC) and the Director of Scientific Operations for the UM-IHC. He will also serve as the School of Medicine’s Senior Associate Dean for Precision Medicine. Dr. Maron is currently a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School, and the co-director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Center at VA Boston Healthcare System. He’s also the Medical Director of the Cardiopulmonary Exercise Center at BWH, and he founded the Faculty-Fellow Research Advisory Program there. He is the PI on three NIH R01s, with over $1.6 million a year in funding, and he has almost 200 publications. Dr. Maron’s science spans basic discovery to clinical application, as evidenced by his 2020 paper in Lancet Respiratory Medicine on “The association between pulmonary vascular resistance and clinical outcomes in patients with pulmonary hypertension: A retrospective cohort study,” as well as his paper on “NEDD9 targets COL3A1 to promote endothelial fibrosis and pulmonary arterial hypertension” in Science Translational Medicine that resulted in a U.S. patent and implicated NEDD9 as an important mediator of pulmonary vascular thrombosis.
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In the same breath, Rozalina McCoy, MD will join the UM-IHC team as the Director of the Precision Medicine and Population Health Program within the institute. Dr. McCoy is an endocrinologist, primary care physician, and NIH-funded health services researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. She is the Vice Chair for Research in the Division of Community Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care and the Medical Director of the Ambulance Community Paramedic Service at the Mayo Clinic. She secured early career funding on a K23 and is currently PI on two NIH R-level awards, as well as a PCORI grant and has over 100 publications, including senior author publications in prestigious journals such as the British Medical Journal and JAMA series journals.
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I also have a couple of internal leadership announcements to make. Claire Fraser, PhD, Founding Director of the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS), has returned from her sabbatical. Dr. Fraser is stepping down as the Director of IGS, but she will resume her role as the Dean E. Albert Reece Endowed Professor in the Department of Medicine and she will remain on the IGS executive leadership team. A true pioneer and global leader in genomic medicine, Dr. Fraser is one of the most highly cited investigators in microbiology with almost 350 publications and over 70,000 citations. We have been extremely fortunate to have her in our school. Jacques Ravel, PhD who has been serving as the Associate Director and Acting Director of IGS, will continue in his interim role. We are very grateful for his leadership and the expertise he brings to IGS. Dr. Ravel has secured almost $70 million in research funding at the School of Medicine during his time on faculty. He was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2012 and in 2015 was awarded the Blaise Pascal International Research Chair, one of the most prestigious European science awards. Dr. Ravel is the Editor in Chief of the journal Microbiome and an Associate Editor for the journal mBio. We are very fortunate to have his vision contribute to the continued success of IGS.
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I want to congratulate Joni Prasad, PhD who will now serve as the Assistant Dean for Research Development and Administration and Chief Conflict of Interest Officer. Dr. Prasad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology and she has served as the Director of the Office of Research Affairs for more than three years and the Deputy Conflict of Interest Officer.
I thank her for her sincere commitment to the research mission and for her ongoing leadership!
| This month, we are launching the engagement process for the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s strategic plan. I would like to see as many faculty members as possible involved and contributing ideas to guide our endeavors over the next five years. We will have engagement sessions at the academic unit level during the spring. Details will come from your chair or director soon, but for now feel free to take notes on your ideas and be ready to share them with your colleagues. | |
As you all know, last month we lost our own Mark J. Cowan, MD, Pulmonologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine. As many of you may know, Mark and I were co-fellows at the NIH and he was my senior mentor in Dr. Jim Shelhamer’s lab, teaching me cloning, PCR, RNA inhibition, and other techniques in molecular and cell biology. I am co-hosting a memorial service with his friends from the UMSOM and NIH, and his family, in his honor on March 24 at 1 p.m. in the Health Sciences Research Facility III Atrium, and I encourage you to attend if you need an outlet for your grief or if you simply wish to honor his memory. Please register here.
With enthusiasm and commitment,
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