ATLANTA, GA (TIP): Emory University has appointed Vikas P. Sukhatme, MD, ScD, a distinguished physician-scientist, as the new Dean of Emory University School of Medicine. He also will serve as Chief Academic Officer of Emory Healthcare and as Woodruff Professor. Sukhatme will join Emory Nov. 1, 2017. Emory President Claire E. Sterk joined Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Emory Healthcare CEO Jonathan S. Lewin and Emory Provost Dwight A. McBride in making the announcement.

Sukhatme is currently Chief Academic Officer and Harvard Faculty Dean for Academic Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and the Victor J. Aresty Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“I am delighted to join President Sterk and Provost McBride in announcing this new appointment,” says Lewin. “Dr. Sukhatme is a highly recognized and exceptional biomedical scientist, clinician, and teacher. I am confident that under his leadership, the medical school will continue its upward trajectory in reputation and impact and will further enhance the Woodruff Health Sciences Center’s place as one of the world’s premiere academic health centers.”

Sukhatme’s appointment is the culmination of a nearly year-long national search. He succeeds David S. Stephens, MD, who has served as interim dean.

“Dr. Sukhatme’s eclectic academic background as a basic science researcher, a clinician, and a translational scientist will be a major asset to the School of Medicine, the University at large, Emory Healthcare, and to the full array of diverse communities with which Emory interacts,” said McBride. “We look forward with great excitement to the future of the School of Medicine under his stewardship.”

“I am deeply honored to have been selected as the Dean of Emory University School of Medicine,” Sukhatme says. “With a stellar leadership team, an extraordinary faculty, an outstanding cadre of staff, trainees and students, and distinguished alumni and supporters, Emory’s future is bright. Now is the time to take on some of the most challenging problems in medicine and biology, and to tackle them through innovative, interdisciplinary approaches.”

Sukhatme was born in India and raised in Rome, Italy. He completed a bachelor’s degree and then a doctorate (ScD) in theoretical physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1979, he received an MD from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology. Following his residency in medicine and a clinical fellowship in nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital, he spent two years at Stanford in immunology research.