Appointment of Yale Cohen, PhD, as Assistant Dean of Research Facilities and Resources

03/03/22

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Yale Cohen, PhD, as Assistant Dean of Research Facilities and Resources at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, effective April 1, 2022.  

Many of you are already quite familiar with Dr. Cohen, as his leadership roles in research training and education at PSOM and the University are far-reaching and impactful.  Dr. Cohen is a Professor of Otorhinolaryngology with secondary appointments in the Department of Neuroscience and Engineering’s Department of Bioengineering.  Recognized widely for his deep commitment to our teaching and training community, Dr. Cohen chairs the Bioengineering Graduate Group, and in 2020 received the prestigious Jane M. Glick Graduate Student Teaching Award, which honors clinicians and scientists who exemplify outstanding quality of patient care, mentoring, research, and teaching.

In addition, since 2014 Dr. Cohen served as chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and since 2018, he served as a Director of the Office of Animal Welfare; in these roles, he championed burden reduction by streamlining the protocol submission and approval process, improved communications among key stakeholders in the research community, and preserved the highest standards of regulatory oversight.  He has now transitioned from both of these University roles to focus on this new PSOM opportunity.  Dr. Cohen continues to serve as an integral member of the PSOM Mission Continuity and Pandemic Response Team, offering honest and informative feedback for keeping our community safe amidst evolving public health guidance.

Dr. Cohen completed his PhD in bioengineering at Penn and continued his post-doc work at Stanford and Caltech.  He began his faculty career at Dartmouth from 1999-2009 and arrived at Penn in 2009 as Director of the Hearing Sciences Center.  His research examines how the brain combines sensory, motor, and cognitive cues to form internal computational models of the external world.

In this new role, Dr. Cohen will lead efforts in distinct yet intersecting areas integral to conducting research: facilities and resources.  As shared in a previous message on planning for exciting PSOM investments, we are developing plans for major new investments in research spaces, priority research programs, and faculty recruitment and retention.  Dr. Cohen will help focus our needs for short-term and longer-term strategic space planning, working with PSOM leadership in departments, centers, and institutes and our research community to understand how best to support our research efforts. 

Dr. Cohen will also extend his oversight to resources including IT infrastructure and core facilities.  For the latter, he will assume leadership of our cores community, building upon the incredible stewardship and advocacy of Dr. Lou Soslowsky, who led and strengthened our research core facilities for the past seven years.  I am grateful for Dr. Soslowsky’s continued guidance as he now focuses primarily on growing research integration activities in his Associate Dean role, which remain imperative efforts as we continue to bridge programs and foster collaboration across campus.

I am fortunate to have a strong team of faculty leadership and counsel, and I am delighted that Dr. Cohen has agreed to provide his thoughtfulness and enthusiasm to serve as Assistant Dean of Research Facilities and Resources.  Please join me in congratulating him on this appointment.

Jon Epstein, MD

EVD | CSO