Peterson, who joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2002, is an internationally recognized researcher and educator in the field of biomedical informatics and maintains an internal medicine practice with Vanderbilt Health.

She will serve as the 11th chair of the Department of Medicine and system physician-in-chief for Vanderbilt Health. Her appointment was effective Jan. 1.

At Vanderbilt Health, Wallace recruited and built a team of veterinarians and operations managers to provide a high-quality animal care program to support researchers with Vanderbilt Health and Vanderbilt University.

Heckers is currently VUMC’s longest serving clinical department chair. He credits his longevity to the department’s culture and tradition of steady leadership, with each of the three previous chairs serving for periods of similar length.

Hanlon, who joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2016, succeeds Mary Margaret “Meg” Chren, MD, the department’s inaugural chair.

The Department of PM&I continues to be one of the leading and most innovative of its kind in the nation.