Russell Rothman, MD, MPP, a leader in patient-centered, comparative clinical effectiveness research at Vanderbilt Health, has been honored with the 2026-2027 George Eastman Visiting Professorship at Oxford University.
Established in 1929 by George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, the one-year professorship is administered by the American Association of Rhodes Scholars and is awarded annually to a senior scholar “of the highest distinction” from the United States.
“I am tremendously honored and excited to receive the George Eastman Visiting Professorship at Oxford,” said Rothman, the Ingram Professor of Integrative and Population Health, Senior Vice President for Population and Public Health, and Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Population and Public Health.
“This will be a great opportunity to expand research on primary care and how to improve health for people and their families, and to build a collaborative academic relationship between Vanderbilt and Oxford,” he said.
The paid Professorial Fellowship at Oxford’s Balliol College includes academic privileges, meals and housing. Previous recipients include Nobel Prize winners George Beadle, Arthur Compton, David Hubel, Martin Karplus, and Linus Pauling, and other renowned academic leaders.
Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, Vanderbilt Health’s Chief Scientific and Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President for Research, and holder of the Brock Family Directorship in Career Development, noted that “to be included among such a distinguished group of scholars is a testament to the significance and impact of Dr. Rothman’s work. Vanderbilt Health is incredibly proud to see him recognized at this level.”
Rothman, Professor of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Health Policy, and Associate Dean of Population Health Sciences in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is internationally known for his research and contributions to health services research and health communication.
He is principal investigator of the STAR (Stakeholders, Technology and Research) Clinical Research Network, based at Vanderbilt Health, which has supported more than 100 funded studies to improve health outcomes in patients with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, COVID-19, vasculitis and other conditions.
Rothman has held key leadership positions in the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an independent, nonprofit organization that funds comparative effectiveness research, and he currently chairs the PCORnet Executive Steering Committee, which oversees a national research network representing more than 75 health systems.
During his professorship, Rothman will work and study at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford, a world leader in primary care research and education.
Among his goals is to develop a global primary care research consortium led by Oxford and Vanderbilt Health that unites other primary care research communities around the world.
In collaboration with other Oxford faculty members, Rothman also anticipates a series of papers outlining opportunities for advancing pragmatic clinical trial implementation in primary care and in the application of big data and digital health in the United States and United Kingdom.
In his letter to the Oxford Professorship Committee, Rothman noted that in many countries, including the U.S. and U.K., “the delivery of care has become more fragmented, and the burdens on primary care have increased,” while primary care resources remain limited.
In recent years, health care has been buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the chronic toll of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental health challenges. “Research and investment into primary care,” he wrote, “is crucial to improve disease intervention and management, and to improve individual, population and public health.”
