Jack Elias, a physician and chair of internal medicine at Yale Medical School, assumed his role as the new dean of medicine and biological sciences Sept. 1. He replaced Provost Mark Schlissel P’15, who served as interim dean after former dean Edward Wing stepped down at the end of June. Wing had held the position since 2008.
Elias will oversee the growing Alpert Medical School and head the undergraduate and graduate biology departments.
The Division of Biology and Medicine encompasses teaching, research and clinical collaboration with local hospitals, so members of the search committee who selected Elias sought “someone who had experience and expertise in all those different areas,” Schlissel said.
Elias has been a professor at Yale since 1990 and became chair of medicine and physician-in-chief at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 2006. Much of his research has focused on pulmonary fibrosis and other lung diseases and injuries. He earned both his undergraduate degree and his MD from Penn.
Schlissel cited Elias’s “experience both as a clinical doctor and laboratory investigator” as qualifications for the position.
“Dr. Elias shares our aspiration that Brown continue on its pathway to becoming one of the top med schools in the country,” he said. “I’m extremely excited to be able to attract to Brown such a well-known and outstanding academic and medical leader.”
“There are a number of wonderful things about Brown that were attractive to me,” Elias said, citing the Med School’s rapid growth and the legacy, values and educational record of the University as a whole.
Schlissel said the recent creation of a School of Public Health may present a challenge to Elias in ensuring “the Med School and (public health program) maintain the close collaborative relationship that they’ve had all along.”
Elias said he remains confident that his prior experience will be helpful as he begins to “understand the system,” a task he cited as his first goal upon arrival.
“Whenever I can, I will try to draw on the things I’ve learned in 23 years at Yale” and attempt to tailor similar solutions and procedures to Brown, he said.
Last updated Sept. 3, 12:44 a.m.
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