After an extensive national search Alice Coogan, MD’88, interim chair of the Department and professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PM&I), was named as the department’s next chair. Coogan is the seventh chair of the department and the first female chair.
Coogan, who is also executive medical director of Anatomic Pathology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, served as the department’s interim leader since October 2019.
“Dr. Coogan has displayed outstanding leadership as interim chair. We were fortunate to have someone with considerable institutional experience ready to step into this important role. PM&I is poised to make an even larger contribution to the Medical Center’s future, and I look forward to working closely with Alice as we continue to expand the department’s clinical and academic programs,” said Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of VUMC and Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Coogan joined the faculty of Vanderbilt in 1997 from Duke University where she was assistant professor of pathology and served as associate director of the department’s residency training program.
At VUMC, in addition to her research and clinical work in cytopathology, Coogan has been actively engaged in teaching medical students, residents and fellows. She has been a member of the School of Medicine Admissions Committee since 2010 and served as chair of Admissions from 2014 to 2018. She started the cytopathology fellowship in 2009 and served as the fellowship director until 2019.
PM&I is one of the leading and most innovative departments of its kind in the nation.