IU School of Medicine to finalize new dean

The IU School of Medicine is currently in the process of choosing a new dean, and the selection committee is down to the final six candidates.

Finalists began on-campus interviews last week in Indianapolis, according to a press release. 

The new dean and vice president for university clinical affairs will succeed Dr. D. Craig Brater, who is retiring in June after 27 years with the school. Brater has been the dean since July 2000.

The chair of the search committee, IU School of Dentistry Dean John Williams, said the search began in September with the help of an academic search firm.

“We developed a job description, then broadly advertised the position in academic journals,” Williams said. “There was a wide invitation. Then applicants could apply, and the search committee looked over resumes and chose pools of people they wanted to talk to.”

After the resumes were looked through, the top candidates were narrowed down and invited to off-campus interviews, Williams said. Then the applicants were narrowed down to six, and their on-campus interviews will span the next few weeks.

Once on campus, Williams said the process of interviews will be intensive.

“The interviews will be two days long,” Williams said. “The applicants will meet with faculty, grad students and leadership of the IU Medical Centers. Then I will take the information and identify an even more reduced list that will go to [IU President Michael] McRobbie and the chancellor.”

The search committee hopes to have made a final choice on the new vice president and dean by this spring.

“It’s hard to know when the final decision will be made, because it all comes down to McRobbie and the chancellor,” Williams said.

The committee’s goal of choosing a new dean is to keep up with everything the School of Medicine has been doing in recent years.

“There are many dynamic changes facing medicine,” Williams said. “The leadership is very important. We want to keep momentum going, contribute to medical research and education and care.”

— Laura Schulte

Finalists
David Williams, M.D.
Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and director of translational research at Boston Children’s Hospital; associate chairman, Department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Leland Fikes Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

David Wilkes, M.D.
Executive associate dean for research affairs; August M. Watanabe Professor of Medical Research and director of the Center for Immunobiology at IU School of Medicine and assistant vice president for research at IU.

Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate dean for translational research and Raymond E. Houk Professor of Psychiatry at IU School of Medicine; director of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and assistant vice president for research at IU.

Jay Hess, M.D., Ph.D.
Carl V. Weller Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology, and professor of internal medicine at University of Michigan Medical School and director of clinical laboratories and director of the Division of Sponsored Research, Department of Pathology at University of Michigan Health System.

Stephen Strakowski, M.D.
Senior associate dean for research, Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan Professor and chairman of psychiatry, and professor of psychology and biomedical engineering, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and vice president of research at UC Health.

William Tierney, M.D.
Associate dean for clinical effectiveness research; Chancellor’s Professor and Sam Regenstrief Professor of Health Services Research at IU School of Medicine and president and CEO of Regenstrief Institute Inc.