Alumni News

1970s

Ronald B. May, MD’73, has been appointed chair of the North Carolina State Commission for Public Health by Governor Roy Cooper. He is vice president of medical affairs for CarolinaEast Health System.

Eric Mitchell, MD’74, GME’79, has joined the medical board and been appointed medical director of AGRiMED Industries, a national medical cannabis organization dedicated to enriching the lives of patients. He is a practicing orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine physician, and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army.

Jack A. Elias, BA’72, MD’76, was named the inaugural Senior Vice President for Health Affairs at Brown University. Elias takes on this role in addition to his positions as dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences and professor of Biology and Medicine. Elias will now oversee the newly constituted Brown Institute for Translational Sciences and Brown Biomedical Innovations Inc., which fosters entrepreneurial biomedical activities, and he will provide leadership in clinical, research and teaching activities involving Brown’s clinical faculty and affiliated hospital system partners.

Mark E. Lowe, MD, PhD’77 has been named vice chair of clinical affairs and strategic planning of the department of Pediatrics and a professor Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He comes from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he was a vice chair, an interim chair and a professor of Pediatrics.

1980s

Michael S. Nussbaum, MD’81, has been appointed chair of Surgery at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. He was an endowed professor and chief of the division of General Surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville. He will also serve as chair of Surgery for Carilion Clinic.

Nicholas A. Dinubile, MD, GME’82, has joined the National Tennis Health & Wellness Task Force. In addition to his private practice with Premier Orthopaedics, he has been a longtime member of the teaching faculty at the Perelman School of Medicine, and is chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery at Delaware County Memorial Hospital.

Scott Boden, BA’82, MD’86, was appointed chief medical advisor of Juvent. He is a tenured professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Emory University School of Medicine and serves as the director of the Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Center.

Gary Koretzky, MD’84, PhD’84, has been appointed vice dean, focused on academic integration at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine. He was recruited to Weill Cornell Medicine in 2013 as dean of the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and vice dean of Research.

Jack A. Pasquale, MD, GME’85, was awarded the 2017 ASPEN Distinguished Nutrition Support Physician Service Award by the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. Pasquale has been a practicing physician for over 30 years and has lectured extensively on nutrition, nationally and internationally.

James A. Underberg, MD’86, was elected president of the National Lipid Association. He is a clinical assistant professor of Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine in the divisions of General Internal Medicine & Endocrinology. He is also the director of the Bellevue Hospital Lipid Clinic and a member of the Center of Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at NYU.

Joel Fuhrman, MD’88, has written a new book, Fast Food Genocide (HarperOne), published in October 2017. The book addresses how poor nutrition has had a deleterious effect on populations. Fuhrman has a nutritional medicine practice in Hunterdon County, N.J., and is president of the Nutritional Research Foundation.

John Duncan McCallum, III, MD’89, has joined the new Connecticut Orthopaedic Institute at MidState Medical Center.

1990s

James M. Musser, MD, PhD, GME’91, was named president-elect of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology for 2017-2018. He will serve as the federation’s president for 2018-2019 and for three years as a member of its executive committee. Musser is chair of the department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine at Houston Methodist Hospital.

Natalie Sacks, MD’96, GME’02, has been appointed to the board of directors of Zymeworks, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of next-generation multifunctional biotherapeutics. She has served as the chief medical officer of Aduro Biotech since September 2016. She is also an assistant clinical professor of Medicine in the division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Derrell Dejuan Porter, MD’97, MBA’98, has been appointed senior vice president and global commercial jead at Atara Biotherapeutics. Prior to joining Atara, he was a vice president with Gilead Sciences. Porter currently serves on the board of directors for Biosortia Pharmaceuticals.

Anil Vachani, MD, GME’99, PhD’11, has been appointed to the medical advisory committee of OncoCyte Corporation, a developer of novel, non-invasive blood-based tests to aid in the early detection of cancer. He is a pulmonologist and director of the Lung Nodule Program. He also serves as an assistant professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center.

2000s

Gregory L. Beatty, PhD’00, MD’04, GME’10, has been appointed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Scientific and Medical Advisory Board for a three-year term. He is an assistant professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine.

David Brooks, MD, PhD, GME’00, has been appointed senior vice president of clinical development for Eleven Biotherapeutics, Inc., a late-stage clinical oncology company advancing a broad pipeline of novel product candidates based on its Targeted Protein Therapeutics platform. He joined Eleven Biotherapeutics from Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, where he served as vice president of clinical research and translational medicine.

C. Charles Fikry, MD’04, MBA’04, has been appointed executive vice president of Pharmaceutical Product Development Laboratories. He joined PPD from Quest Diagnostics, where he served most recently as vice president and general manager for oncology and companion diagnostics.

Alexander Kutikov, MD, GME’08, has been appointed the new chief of the division of Urologic Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. He joined the department of Surgical Oncology at Fox Chase in 2010 after completing a Society of Urologic Oncology fellowship at the center.

Obituaries

1940s

Alan Fulton Scott, MD’43, a family physician; Aug. 10. He completed his undergraduate degree at Wake Forest College and, after transferring from Wake Forest Medical College, completed his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. His residency was at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in Upper Darby, Pa. In January of 1943, he was inducted into the U.S. Army as a First Lieutenant and entered the 292nd Field Artillery Observation Battalion. He became captain in the United States Army Medical Corps and served in Europe until the end of the war. He had a family practice in Salisbury, N.C.

James Francis Hammill, MD’48, a neurologist; June 21. Hammill attended medical school with GI funding after service in the enlisted Army Reserve, then rejoined the Army after medical school to serve in the Medical Corps. His military service included service in the Korean War, working as chief of Neurology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a stint in the office of the surgeon general. He retired from the Army in 1957 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and joined the medical faculty of Columbia University that year. He was honored by Columbia for his compassionate and humane care of patients and for being a role model for medical students and colleagues. He retired from Columbia in 1992 as professor emeritus.

William J. Williams, MD’49 GME’53, a retired dean and professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University; Nov. 4. During World War II and the Korean War, he served in the U.S. Navy. He worked at SUNY Upstate Medical University for 33 years. As dean of the College of Medicine (1991-1992 and 2002-2004), he oversaw a college with more than 600 students and 480 faculty. 

1950s

John T. Carpenter, Jr., BA’48, MD’52, an obstetrician and gynecologist; May 5. After graduating from medical school at Penn and completing an internship at Pennsylvania Hospital, Carpenter served as an Army medical officer in Germany for two years. Back in the Philadelphia area, he became known as an innovator in childbirth management and was one of the first area physicians to permit fathers in the delivery room. He established natural delivery birthing rooms and allowed mother-baby bonding in the hospital and early discharge from the medical center before these became standard practice. For 30 years ending in the mid-1990s, Carpenter was a member of  Penn’s medical  faculty. From 1958 until his retirement in 1997, he maintained a solo ob-gyn practice in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Herbert L. Needleman, MD’52, GME’56, a pediatrician and psychiatrist; July 18. Born in Philadelphia, he completed his undergraduate degree at Muhlenberg College. He served in the Army and the Army Reserve, attaining the rank of captain. He was internationally renowned for his pioneering work demonstrating the negative effects of low level lead exposure on childhood development and behavior. His landmark 1972 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that low-income, mostly black children in Philadelphia had lead levels five times higher than suburban, mostly white children. In 1979, he demonstrated that even low levels of lead exposure had a measurable impact on cognitive development. Needleman received numerous awards, including the Heinz Award in the Environment.

Albert I. Winegrad, BA’49, MD’52, emeritus professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; July 20. Winegrad was the Ware Professor of Medicine and director of the Cox Institute of Diabetes Research at Penn. He was a past vice president of the American Diabetes Association and winner of the 1986 Banting Medal for his pioneering work in diabetic neuropathy. He joined Penn in 1957 as an associate instructor of Endocrinology. In 1960, he became assistant professor and in 1966, he became associate professor. He was named professor of Medicine in the Cox Institute in 1970. In 1992, he retired and became emeritus professor of Medicine.

Julio Noguera, MD, GME’54, an otorhinolaryngologist; March 30. After graduation from the University of Maryland Medical School, Noguera trained in otolaryngology at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Temple University Hospital. From 1955 to 1957, he served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps. Upon discharge, he established a practice in Asbury Park, N.J. From 1960 to 1985, he was director of the section of Otolaryngology in the surgical department of what is now Jersey Shore University Medical Center. He started the center’s practice of head and neck surgery. Noguera retired in 1990.

Liebe S. Diamond, MD’55, GME’60, a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon; May 17. Born in Baltimore, with a rare condition called constricted ring syndrome which resulted in the loss of several fingers and toes in utero, she underwent more than two dozen surgical procedures on her hands and feet by age 13. She began her undergraduate studies at Smith College at age 16 and went on to complete her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a pediatrics internship and surgical residency at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. After working briefly as a pediatrician, she returned to Penn and in 1955 obtained a degree in Orthopaedics, then was the first female resident and chief resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania  in 1957, in Orthopaedic Surgery. She established a solo practice in the early 1960s, specializing in the care and treatment of children with hand and limb deformities, and was professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Maryland Medical School from 1961 to 1996. In 1971, she and seven other surgeons founded the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America. She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2006.

David Kuhl, MD’55, GME’58, a nuclear medicine pioneer; May 28. Kuhl was an internationally known pioneer in positron emission tomography. He joined Penn’s faculty in 1958 as assistant instructor and resident of Medical Radiology. He became a professor of Radiology in 1970. In 1976, he left to join the University of California Los Angeles, where he remained until 1986 when he became chief of the division of nuclear medicine at University of Michigan, a position he held for 25 years until his retirement in 2011. Kuhl developed a new method of tomographic imaging, as well as several tomographic instruments, early in his career. His techniques were eventually developed into today’s positron emission tomography. His research focused on the use of radioactive tracers and emission reconstruction tomography to develop new measures of neurochemical and metabolic processes within the living brain. The techniques he developed enabled the creation of drugs targeted to the earliest stages of degenerative brain disease. Kuhl was a founding member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.

Samuel H. Tucker, MD’56, GME’60, a pediatric neurologist; April 7. Raised in Chestnut Hill, he was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Princeton University. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserves, retiring with the rank of captain. He retired in 2000 after 38 years as a pediatric neurologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Emily Meginnity Seydel, MD’57, a pediatrician; Aug. 12. A trailblazing woman, she completed her undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College and her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a pediatrician who worked in schools and treatment facilities for troubled children, and later was a partner in her own practice.

Mary Catherine (Susy) Glick, PhD’58, professor emerita of pediatric research at the University of Pennsylvania; March 6. After earning her PhD in microbiology, Glick was initially hired at Penn as a Woodward Fellow at the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine and went on to be an assistant professor of experimental therapeutic research and in 1972, then associate professor of pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology. She became professor of therapeutic research in 1965. Glick pioneered the field of terminal glycosylation of membrane glycoconjugates and their role in disease, specifically neuroblastoma and cystic fibrosis. She was the 2009 recipient of the Rosalind Kornfeld Award for Lifetime Achievement in Glycobiology, which honors scientists with a distinguished scientific career that has made significant contributions to the field. In 1996, she retired and became professor emerita of pediatric research.

Richardson B. Glidden, MD’59, GME’63, an obstetrician and gynecologist; July 21. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College. He served in the United States Army National Guard and United States Army in Germany during the Korean War. After earning his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Dover, Del. for twenty years.

H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr., MD’59 rheumatology pioneer; July 30. A fundamental force in the field of rheumatology internationally, Schumacher was a professor emeritus and former acting chief of Rheumatology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and section chief of Rheumatology at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Born in Montreal in 1932, Schumacher attended Ursinus College. He completed an internship at the Denver General Hospital, and his residency and a fellowship at the Wadsworth VA Hospital/UCLA. He served for two years as a staff physician and only rheumatologist in the U.S. Air Force.  Schumacher then completed another fellowship in rheumatology at the Robert B. Brigham Hospital and one in pathology at the Peter B. Brigham Hospital. He joined the Penn faculty in 1967 and steadily rose to rank of full professor in 1979. A quintessential physician-scientist, he explored with state-of-the art laboratory techniques many questions that emerged from his astute clinical observations. His work led to many major advances in both the understanding of the pathophysiology of inflammatory arthritis and the treatment of these complex disorders. A memorial service at Penn is planned.

2000s

Amy J. Reed, MD’05, PhD’02, GME’11, an anesthesiologist and patient-safety advocate; May 24. She completed her undergraduate degree at Pennsylvania State University and medical degree and doctorate in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as an anesthesiologist in Boston. In 2013, upon being diagnosed with uterine fibroids, she underwent a hysterectomy performed with an electric morcellator. In a post-surgery biopsy, it was shown that an undiagnosed malignancy, leiomyosarcoma, had been spread and aggravated by the device. She and her husband, Hooman Noorchashm, BA’92, PhD’01, MD’02, GME’11, became patient-safety advocates devoted to exposing the risks and banning the morcellator, successfully convincing the FDA to study the device and warn against its usage in almost all cases. “Amy was the consummate Penn physician-scientist - an accomplished mother, physician, scientist, defender of women and a powerful public health advocate,” Noorchasm said. “It is a statistical certainty that the public health battle she won for women will save the hundreds, if not thousands, of families from the oncological catastrophe to which she fell.”

Jessica Panzer, MD’06, PhD’06, a pediatric neurologist and scientist; May 13. Panzer was attending physician and assistant professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. In the MD/PhD program at Penn, she received a predoctoral medical student fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She earned a PhD in Neuroscience working in the laboratory of Rita Balice-Gordon, PhD. Panzer was a pioneer in developing in vivo imaging of neuromuscular synapotogenesis in zebrafish.  She was one of the few pediatric movement disorders subspecialists in the country, as well as one of the few pediatric physician scientists with expertise in autoimmune etiologies of the CNS in children. Her primary research focus related to NMDA receptor encephalitis.

Faculty

Arthur Auerbach, BA’47, MD, faculty member in Psychiatry; Feb. 13. Auerbach served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and joined the Penn faculty as an instructor of Psychiatry in 1961. He was president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research from 1983-1984.

John T. Carpenter, Jr., MD. See Class of 1952.

Mary Catherine (Susy) Glick, PhD. See Class of 1958.

Jessica Panzer, MD, PhD. See Class of 2006.

H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr., MD. See class of 1959.

Bayard T. Storey, PhD, emeritus professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology; June 4. Storey was a renowned researcher whose work provided a foundation for the analysis of specific forms of male infertility, the development of techniques for the evaluation of sperm function and the generation of new approaches to conception. He also was an expert on sperm glycolysis and mitochondrial function. Storey earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1952, his master’s degree from MIT in 1955 and his PhD from Harvard in 1958. He worked at Rohm and Haas before joining Penn in 1965, where he held faculty roles in the departments of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Physiology and Physical Biochemistry.

Albert I. Winegrad, MD. See class of 1952.