April 12, 2023

Dear School of Medicine Community,

I have very much enjoyed our investiture celebrations honoring our faculty. These events are great opportunities for our faculty to network and celebrate together. I have asked our Chairs and Center and Institute Directors to join in these events honoring our esteemed faculty. Please find the time to join us when possible. I want to publicly congratulate the faculty members who have received distinguished professorships this year – Matthew Frieman, PhD, Karen Kotloff, MD, and – as of yesterday – Graeme Woodworth, MD, as an endowed chair. The honor of receiving an endowed position represents the community’s investment in our faculty’s excellence. The School of Medicine’s friends and partners are extremely generous, and we would not be able to continue to excel in our various fields of expertise without their support.

Updates on leadership

I want to announce a very exciting new faculty recruit to the School of Medicine, who will fill a significant new role as our Senior Associate Dean for Population and Community Medicine and Associate Vice President of Community Health. Esa M. Davis, MD, MPH will join us in July 2023 from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a Professor of Medicine, a practicing family medicine physician, and an NIH-funded comparative effectiveness implementation science investigator. At the UPSOM, she is the Director of the UPMC Tobacco Treatment Service, the Director of the Career Education and Enhancement for Health Care Research Diversity (CEED) Program, the Director of the TRANSFORM Program, and the Director of the Clinical and Translational Science KL2 Scholars Program. In her Population and Community Medicine role here, Dr. Davis will develop a cohesive population health strategy for the SOM in conjunction with clinical and UMMC leadership, and she will advise me on strategies to advance our community health interactions, especially in the West Baltimore community. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Davis this summer.

We have three search committees underway to select new leaders at the School of Medicine, and I want to share a summary of those efforts. The search committee for the new Chair of the Department of Dermatology, led by Rodney Taylor, MD, has completed the first round of virtual interviews and identified several candidates as finalists to invite to campus over the next month. The search committee for the new Director of the Cancer Center, led by Dr. Woodworth and Christine Lau, MD, MBA, has completed its review of applicants and selected several to be invited for virtual interviews. Lastly, I have charged our search committee for the new Chair of the Department of Physiology, led by Dudley Strickland, PhD, and they will meet soon to review applicants and select candidates for virtual interviews. 

With enthusiasm and commitment,