Jonathan Epstein, MD, New CSO for Penn Medicine
June 29, 2015
To:Penn Medicine Faculty, Staff and Students
From:J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD
I am delighted to welcome Jonathan Epstein to his new role as Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer for Penn Medicine, effective July 1. I am looking forward with great enthusiasm to working with Jon to usher in a new era of innovation and impact at Penn Medicine.
Jon is superbly equipped to lead our research mission as we face unprecedented opportunities for basic discovery and translation. He joined the Penn faculty in 1996 and has developed an extraordinarily wide-ranging and impactful research program. Jon is a board-certified cardiologist and physician-scientist and an authority in stem cell biology and cardiovascular development. His lab has identified causes of congenital heart disease, implicated new therapeutic targets for heart failure, and elucidated basic signaling mechanisms that regulate quiescence and differentiation of stem cells. Of note, he has published widely with more than 40 Penn faculty members in areas such as neuroscience, gastroenterology, pulmonary biology, immunology, dermatology, and epidemiology. His work has appeared in top tier journals and texts, including Nature, Cell, The New England Journal of Medicine and Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. As this announcement is read, his latest paper is featured on the cover of Science.
Owing to his collaborative spirit and the broad range of his research and clinical interests, Jon is one of our academic medical center's outstanding leaders. For the past nine years, he has chaired the Department of Cell and Development Biology, making it one of the strongest in the country. He directed the research residency program in the Department of Medicine, was the founding co-director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and served as the Scientific Director of the Penn Cardiovascular Institute. Among many other institutional contributions, he co-led our five-year Strategic Plan.
In every leadership role he has undertaken, Jon has been resoundingly successful. In his new role, Jon will have an opportunity to further our efforts to leverage the integrated model of Penn Medicine to foster collaboration, fundamental discovery and translational research, and administrative efficiency to support the needs of our robust scientific community. Jon will have broad authority to work closely with each of you to identify scientific opportunities, and to invest wisely in people, cores, and innovative programs. He will partner with Executive Vice President Kevin Mahoney and other health system leaders to insure that large-scale decisions affecting all of our missions are made holistically and that the impact of major initiatives is recognized across the organization. Jon will also work closely with Vice Provost Dawn Bonnell to explore opportunities across the University.
Jon graduated from Harvard College in 1983, Harvard Medical School in 1988, and completed his Residency and Fellowship in Medicine and Cardiology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he also completed an HHMI Postdoctoral Fellowship in Genetics. He has received numerous awards, including the Sir William Osler Young Investigator Award from the Interurban Club and the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Federation for Medical Research. He serves on the Board of Scientific Councilors for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and is a past member of the NHLBI Board of External Experts. Jon is President of the Interurban Clinical Club, Past President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a member of the American Association of Physicians, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
I could not be more pleased to be working closely with one of the most talented leaders in academic medicine to help shape the future of Penn Medicine. Please join me in congratulating Jon on his appointment as Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer for Penn Medicine.
Finally, please join me in appreciation of Glen Gaulton as he assumes new responsibilities as Vice Dean and Director of Global Health. A celebration of Glen's accomplishments and impact as CSO will take place in the fall.