In recognition of exceptional faculty and the extraordinary, long-standing partnership and shared destiny of UMass Memorial Health and UMass Chan Medical School, Chancellor Michael F. Collins has announced a $5 million philanthropic gift from UMass Memorial Health and $2.5 million in matching funds from the University of Massachusetts Foundation that allow UMass Chan to establish five new ‘UMass Memorial Health’ endowed chairs. The UMass Memorial gift is designed to support highly accomplished senior clinicians who have dual appointments at UMass Chan and UMass Memorial.
Furthermore, Chancellor Collins said seven additional new endowed chairs are being established, meeting the institutional goal of 75 endowed chairs by 2025. Earlier today the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees voted to approve the creation of these endowed chairs and the esteemed faculty appointed to hold them.
“The faculty of UMass Chan represent the heart of our organization and propel advances in each of our mission areas of education, research, clinical care and public service,” Collins said. “I would like to express my deep gratitude to Eric Dickson, MD, who, as president and chief executive officer of UMass Memorial Health and a proud alum of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, appreciates our faculty colleagues and seeks to invest in all they are able to achieve on behalf of patients in Central Massachusetts and around the globe.”
Collins said that announcing 12 endowed chairs in a single day would not be possible without “our impactful partners, specifically, partnership with our primary clinical affiliate, UMass Memorial; partnership with the UMass Foundation, UMass President’s Office and UMass Board of Trustees; and partnership with our faculty and donors. I thank each of these colleagues for their trust and support.”
Dr. Dickson said, “Today is a great day. With the approval of these endowed chairs by the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees, we are further strengthening our deep relationship with the University and the Medical School as we together forge a clear path in what has become a challenging health care environment. This investment demonstrates our shared values and commitment to our faculty and to the future of our organizations.”
“We are deeply appreciative of the generous gift from UMass Memorial Health that will enable the establishment of five new endowed chairs and are grateful for the partnership of Dr. Eric Dickson,” said UMass President Marty Meehan. “I’m also proud that the UMass Foundation was able to support this generous gift with $2.5 million in matching funds in recognition of the deep and meaningful relationship between UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Health.”
UMass Memorial Health Endowed Chairs
A.M. Barrett, MD
Thomas J. FitzGerald, MD’80
Diane McKee, MD
Max P. Rosen, MD, MPH
J. Matthias Walz, MD
The inaugural holders of the five new UMass Memorial Health chairs are:
A.M. Barrett, MD, chair and professor of neurology, for appointment to the UMass Memorial Chair in Neurology. Since joining UMass Chan in 2022, Dr. Barrett has also served as chief of the Neurology Service at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System. Her work as a physician-scientist brings together training in cognitive neurology and neuropsychology, neurology, medicine and brain injury. Her research program encompasses brain-behavior relationships relevant to spatial cognition and rehabilitation of spatial neglect; person-centered care and outcomes relevant to function and life participation; and identification and management of hidden disabilities and mechanisms of deficit unawareness. Previously she was on faculty at Penn State, Rutgers and Emory Universities.
Thomas J. FitzGerald, MD’80, chair and professor of radiation oncology, for appointment to the UMass Memorial Chair in Radiation Oncology. Dr. FitzGerald has served as chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology since 2004 and has been one of the primary investigators for the Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core and the National Clinical Trials Network of the National Cancer Institute. Additionally, he regularly collaborates with basic science faculty. He has published more than 200 manuscripts about clinical, translational and basic science discoveries, earning him a ranking among the top five percent of research scientists for citations, according to ResearchGate. FitzGerald is a 1980 graduate of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and the recipient of the 2019 UMass Chan Alumni Distinguished Service Award in recognition of excellence in the UMass Chan mission areas.
Diane McKee, MD, chair and professor of family medicine & community health since 2019, will be the inaugural holder of the UMass Memorial Ledwith Chair in Family and Community Medicine. Dr. McKee is engaged in each of our mission areas and has given special attention to diversity and equity in the practice of family medicine, and to building primary care and community health research and scholarship. She serves on the Board of Trustees for UMass Memorial’s Community Healthlink. McKee joined UMass Chan after a successful tenure at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. This new endowed chair is named in memory of James Ledwith, MD, a respected and beloved faculty member in family medicine & community health who died unexpectedly this summer following a bicycle accident.
Max P. Rosen, MD, MPH, chair and professor of radiology, has been named to the UMass Memorial Chair in Radiology. Dr. Rosen joined UMass Chan in 2012 from Beth Israel Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. During his tenure as chair, Rosen has nurtured and guided a vibrant, growing department with more than 90 radiologists, 40 scientists, several UMass Chan preclinical teaching faculty and dozens of residents and fellows. The Department of Radiology now performs approximately 900,000 studies per year, providing comprehensive diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology services throughout the UMass Memorial Health system, while conducting research and teaching the next generation of caregivers.
Matthias Walz, MD, chair and professor of anesthesiology & perioperative medicine, has been named to the UMass Memorial Kaur Chair in Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine. Dr. Walz has led the department since 2018 and helped spearhead the integration of health informatics into patient safety and research initiatives. He is active in numerous professional organizations and has invested in the department's research expertise, supporting National Institutes of Health and PCORI-funded grants. The endowed chair that Walz holds is named after Shubjeet Kaur, MD, the late former chair of anesthesiology & perioperative medicine who served as a leader at our organizations for 30 years and was a beloved colleague who left a legacy of passion for teaching and patient care.
UMass Chan will formally celebrate these five distinguished clinical department leaders during a special Investiture Ceremony later this year.
The Board of Trustees also approved the establishment of the following endowed chairs and faculty appointments.
UMass Chan Medical School Endowed Chairs
Anil Chandraker, MD
Stephenie C. Lemon, PhD
Fernando Martinez, MD, MS
Oliver Rando, MD, PhD
Dorothy Schafer, PhD
Paul Thompson, PhD
Anil Chandraker, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Renal Medicine in the Department of Medicine, is the inaugural holder of the Jack M. Wilson Chair in Biomedical Research. Prior to joining UMass Chan earlier this year, Dr. Chandraker was associate professor at Harvard Medical School and medical director for kidney and pancreas transplantation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His lab investigates ways to regulate the immune response to transplanted organs and clinical complications that affect transplant patients. He is past president of the American Society of Transplantation. The creation of this chair is in honor of Jack M. Wilson, who, as you may recall, is president emeritus of the University of Massachusetts, whose legacy of leadership over the course of many years championed the mission of the Medical School and helped UMass Chan advance to where it is today.
Stephenie C. Lemon, PhD, professor of population & quantitative health sciences and chief of the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, is the new holder of the Barbara Helen Smith Chair in Preventive and Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Lemon is a behavioral epidemiologist and applied public health researcher whose work promotes health equity using community-engaged approaches. As co-director of the Prevention Research Center and director of Community Engagement for the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science, she leads a program of research that focuses on chronic disease prevention and control, bringing together policy, community and social factors to achieve behavioral change in populations impacted by health disparities.
Fernando Martinez, MD, MS, professor of medicine, academic chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine and inaugural vice chair for clinical and translational research in the Department of Medicine, is the inaugural holder of the Joseph D. Early Chair in Biomedical Research. Dr. Martinez joined UMass Chan this summer from Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is a highly accomplished physician-scientist recognized for seminal studies in the phenotypic and functional classification and clinical interventions in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and interstitial lung disease. With more than 700 publications, 13,000+ citations and extensive federal funding, Martinez leads numerous clinical trials and serves as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Blue Journal. This new endowed chair was established in recognition of the late Worcester Congressman Joseph D. Early, whose steadfast advocacy for UMass Chan contributed to our organization’s success.
Oliver Rando, MD, PhD, professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology, is the inaugural holder of the Endowed Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology I. Dr. Rando’s lab investigates epigenetic inheritance—the inheritance of information beyond the DNA sequence that can influence how genes function. His group leverages their expertise in genomics and genetics, reproductive biology, microscopy, and biochemistry to explore the role of epigenetics in a broad range of biological processes. Rando earned his MD/PhD at Stanford University and served as a Bauer Genome Fellow at Harvard University prior to joining the faculty at UMass Chan.
Dorothy Schafer, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology, is the inaugural holder of the UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Biomedical Research I. Dr. Schafer’s lab aims to understand how the immune and nervous systems interact to regulate the development and function of the nervous system in health and disease. Schafer made the first fundamental discovery that a resident immune cell of the brain, called microglia, is critical to shape developing brain circuits by removing excess neuronal synapses. More recently, her research team is investigating inflammatory signaling within brain circuits during neurodegenerative disease. After earning her doctoral degree at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Schafer completed postdoctoral training at Boston Children’s Hospital. She was awarded the 2017 Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and the prestigious 2024 UPenn Mahoney Institute Rising Star Award.
Paul Thompson, PhD, professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology and director of the Program in Chemical Biology, is the inaugural holder of the Endowed Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology II. Dr. Thompson was educated at McMaster University in Canada and completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine before joining the faculty at the University of South Carolina, the Scripps Research Institute and, ultimately, UMass Chan in 2014. The mission of his lab is to develop and test novel inhibitors for therapeutic applications across various diseases. He is a named author on more than 200 publications, many in high-impact journals including Nature, Cell and the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Thompson has founded several biotech companies and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The new UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Biomedical Research II has been established. Its inaugural holder will be announced at a later date. Finally, the Board of Trustees approved the Paul J. DiMare Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease, to which Daryl Bosco, PhD, professor of neurology, was invested at the 2024 Convocation & Investiture Ceremonies last week.
