Vanderbilt University recently honored several faculty members for their years of service and bestowed on them the title of emeritus or emerita faculty
Daniel H. Ashmead, Ph.D. – Professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences. He received a B.S. in Psychology from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Child Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He pursued post-doctoral training at the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Ashmead came to Vanderbilt in 1984, making innumerable contributions to the profession of communication disorders. Dr. Ashmead’s primary area of research has been spatial hearing in several contexts, including development in human infants, its role in spatial orientation by persons with visual impairments, and the effects of hearing aids and cochlear implants on sound localization. Most recently, his work focused on auditory motion perception. Dr. Ashmead has published more than 65 journal articles, and he has served on several NIH Study Sections. During his career at Vanderbilt University, he served on a number of committees including the Committee on Individual Programs in the College of Arts and Science and Associate Director of Graduate Studies-Ph.D. Program in Hearing and Speech.
Thomas F. Cleveland, Ph.D. – Professor of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He received his Ph.D. in Music and Voice Science from the University of Southern California in 1976. His dissertation presented the first explanation of why singing voices were divided into the specific categories of bass, baritone, and tenor. Dr. Cleveland served on the faculty at the California Baptist College (1971-1975) and the University of Southern California (1975-1991). Dr. Cleveland came to the Vanderbilt Voice Center in 1991 to establish and direct a therapeutic program of voice intervention for singing voice problems, the first real program of its kind in the United States. He developed a treatment protocol for muscle tension dysphonia that is the go-to treatment protocol for singers and speakers. The Vanderbilt Voice Center is now recognized as one of the leading voice clinics in the world. Vanderbilt residents, laryngology fellows, and colleagues have benefitted from Dr. Cleveland’s teaching and treatment of voice problems and general knowledge in voice acoustics.
Jeffrey M. Davidson, Ph.D. – Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. He received his B.S. from Tufts University, MS, his Ph.D. from Stanford University, and his postdoctoral training at the University of Washington. Prior to being recruited to Vanderbilt in 1986, he was a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and an Assistant/Associate Professor at the University of Utah where he was also appointed to the Veterans Administration Medical Center. He was awarded a prestigious Senior Research Career Scientist position at the VA. Dr. Davidson has published nearly 200 research articles and more than 40 book chapters and reviews. His federally-funded research investigated the role of growth factors in age- and diabetes-related healing defects, gene therapy of wounds, biomaterial-tissue interactions, and signaling processes in wound repair. Dr. Davidson was chair of the NIH Pathobiochemistry Study Section, and past president of the Wound Healing Society and the American Society for Matrix Biology (ASMB).
Mark E. Frisse, M.D., M.B.A. – Professor of Biomedical Informatics. He received his M.D. and M.B.A. from Washington University and his M.S. in Medical Information Science from Stanford University. Dr. Frisse founded the Medical Informatics Laboratory and rose to Associate Dean at Washington University. He was recruited to Vanderbilt as the Accenture Professor of Biomedical Informatics in 2004. Dr. Frisse’s work focuses on the intersection between health care informatics, economics, policy, and health care transformation. Dr. Frisse led the nationally-funded effort to create a health information exchange in Memphis, Tennessee, resulting in an appointment on the State of Tennessee Governor’s eHealth Committee. Dr. Frisse has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and textbooks. Dr. Frisse received the Outstanding Educator Award at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, and several major awards including the American Informatics Association Don Eugene Detmer Award for Health Policy Contribution in Informatics and the Washington University School of Medicine’s Alumni Achievement Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014.
Marie R. Griffin, M.D., M.P.H. – Professor of Health Policy. She joined the faculty at Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor in 1986. Dr. Griffin was one of the first women to choose the tenure track in the Medical Center and became a role model for women interested in becoming physician scientists. She co-founded the Master of Public Health program, becoming the Director in 2014. Dr. Griffin is an internationally recognized healthcare epidemiologist. Her research interests include safety and effectiveness of drugs and vaccines, program evaluation, and methods in pharmacoepidemiology. Dr. Griffin is the recipient of the Grant W. Liddle Award for Outstanding Contributions to Research at VUMC, the Association for Clinical and Translational Science Distinguished Investigator Award for Translation from Clinical Use into Public Benefit and Policy, and the Mary Jane Werthan Award for Advancement of Women at Vanderbilt. Dr. Griffin has over 300 peer-reviewed publications and has made seminal contributions to the vaccine science and public health literature.
Richard L. Hoover, Ph.D. – Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. He received his Ph.D. in 1972 at Michigan State University, held a two-year postdoctoral position in Scotland at the University of Glasgow, and then served at Harvard Medical School for ten years, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. He came to Vanderbilt University in August 1985. During his tenure at Vanderbilt, he was director of two NIH training grants. Dr. Hoover was awarded the AAAS Fellowship in 2014 for his contributions to science and education. Dr. Hoover was instrumental in determining the importance of the endothelial lining of blood vessels and its pivotal role in inflammation, atherosclerosis and metastasis, and in our understanding of membrane fluidity and formation of lipid domains. He has published nearly 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals. In 2001, he became the Associate Dean of the Graduate School. He received the Levi Watkins, Jr. Faculty Award from Vanderbilt University and the Dr. Dolores Shockley Partnership Award from Meharry Medical College/Vanderbilt University for promoting diversity in graduate education and research at both institutions.
Patrick J. Lavin, M.B.B.Ch., B.A.O. – Professor of Neurology. Dr. Lavin graduated from University College Dublin, Ireland in 1964 and attended The National University of Ireland, University College Dublin Medical School, and earned his M.D. in 1970. He joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1983 and established the Vanderbilt neuro-ophthalmology program. Dr. Lavin served as the director of the Ocular Motility Laboratory, director of the Transcranial Doppler Laboratory, and director of the Vanderbilt Headache Clinic. Dr. Lavin’s many contributions include developing clinical guidelines for the management of acute central retinal artery occlusion and for idiopathic intracranial hypertension. His interests include acute and chronic optic neuropathies, eye movement disorders, nystagmus, neuro-otology, and headache. His clinical research efforts center on eye movement disorders, nystagmus, metabolic disorders affecting the visual system, and MR imaging in patients with optic neuropathies. Dr. Lavin has more than 60 publications in referred journals and he has more than 100 invited lectures and presentations, both nationally and internationally.
James E. Loyd, M.D. – Professor of Medicine. He received both his B.S. and M.D. degrees from West Virginia University. Dr. Loyd began his 46-year career at Vanderbilt as an intern in 1973. In 1983, Dr. Loyd was selected as a British Heart Foundation Research Fellow at Oxford, United Kingdom, by the American Heart Association. In 2003, he was named Rudy W. Jacobson Professor in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Loyd is considered a world expert in the study and treatment of pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary fibrosis, and pulmonary complications of histoplasmosis. He started and developed the lung transplantation program at Vanderbilt in 1987 and served as Medical Director of Lung Transplantation for thirteen years. He also started the Vanderbilt Pulmonary Hypertension Center in the 1990’s. His research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine seven times over his career. Dr. Loyd’s original description of BMPR2 mutations in pulmonary hypertension was published in Nature and has been cited over 1300 times.
James A. Patton, Ph.D. – Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1972 and joined Radiology as an Instructor in 1973. Dr. Patton served in administrative roles under five different chairmen. He managed the first Clinical/Research PETCyclotron Facility while overseeing installation of state-of-the-art PET/CT scanner and high volume production cyclotron. In 2014, Dr. Patton was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Association of Administrators in Academic Radiology. Since 1974, Dr. Patton has instructed nuclear medicine, radiology, and cardiology residents in Nuclear Medicine Physics, Instrumentation, and Quality Assurance. He established a Nuclear Medicine Technology Program in 1979, serving as Program Director until 2018. Dr. Patton was recognized at the 2019 Nuclear Medicine Technologists of Tennessee annual meeting for his contributions to training technologists. Dr. Patton authored 85 peer-reviewed articles, 76 book chapters, 9 textbooks and presented more than 100 invited talks nationally and internationally. Dr. Patton was recipient of the prestigious Society of Nuclear Medicine Dr. Marshall H. Brucer Award for his contributions to nuclear medicine.
James W. Pichert, Ph.D. – Professor of Medical Education and Administration. His M.S. and Ph.D., both in education, were earned at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and his bachelor’s degree in educational research was earned at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. In his 40 years of service, Dr. Pichert served as a member of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center Education Core for two decades, and played a pivotal role in launching the VUMC Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy. Dr. Pichert served as a member or leader of various VUMC education- and administration-related committees. Dr. Pichert’s work resulted in 120+ peer-reviewed publications, and 91 book chapters/reviews. He presented many workshops for physicians and healthcare executives on strategies for promoting professionalism and communicating about adverse outcomes and errors.
Donald H. Rubin, M.D. – Professor of Medicine. He received his M.D. degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1974, his residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, and his fellowship in infectious disease at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School which led to his laboratory investigations on the molecular pathogenesis of virus infections. He is a recognized expert in pathogen-host interactions and host genomics. In addition, he started a company, Zirus, which focused on the discovery of cellular based therapies to intracellular pathogens. He was recruited to Vanderbilt in 1992 as Professor of Medicine. He was Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the Veterans Administration Tennessee Valley Healthcare System. As a founding member of the Academy for Excellence in Education at Vanderbilt, he facilitated its case-based curriculum. Dr. Rubin championed women in science and promoted inclusiveness and diversity, which was recognized by the Levi Watkins, Jr., M.D. Faculty Award for Diversity in 2009. Additional honors include teaching awards from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University, election to the American Society for Clinical Research, Fellow to the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Disease Society of America, and AAAS.
William J. Stone, M.D. – Professor of Medicine. Dr. Stone, who died May 11, 2020, at 83, received his undergraduate degree at Princeton University and his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He undertook his Internal Medicine training at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and served as Chief Resident at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital. He completed postdoctoral training at Cornell University Medical School and served in the Army as a nephrologist during the Vietnam War. He returned to Vanderbilt as a faculty member in 1969. Dr. Stone was Chief of Renal Section at the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley HealthCare System from 1972 to 2017. His passion for patient care and advocacy is reflected in his efforts to start the first home and in-center dialysis treatments in the state of Tennessee, setting the stage for the first kidney transplant in the VAMC system. Dr. Stone has more than 140 publications, edited multiple books, and wrote numerous book chapters. His research contributions included basic understanding of the pathophysiology of advanced kidney disease, and the initial use of erythropoietin stimulating agents in dialysis patients.
