Dr. Daniel Marks is appointed senior associate dean for research
July 20, 2018
OHSU School of Medicine Dean Sharon Anderson has appointed Daniel Marks, M.D., Ph.D., senior associate dean for research in the school, effective July 23. Dr. Marks will join the school's senior leadership team and succeeds Mary Stenzel-Poore, Ph.D., who stepped down from the role last year.
"Dan Marks is an excellent physician-scientist and educator with deep relationships across missions and an outstanding research portfolio," said Dean Anderson. "I believe he will provide strong, experience-based leadership for research in the school in addition to being an overall asset on my leadership team and a collaborator with the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research."
The senior associate dean for research, at .7 FTE, works collaboratively with Dean Anderson, Mary Heinricher, Ph.D., associate dean for basic research, Peter Barr-Gillespie, Ph.D., interim senior vice president for research, OHSU, and other research leaders to oversee and support the school's research mission, its relationships with other research programs at OHSU and external collaborations.
"I'm so pleased Dan has agreed to take on this role, and
I'm excited to start working with him," said Dr. Heinricher.
He holds a number of leadership positions, including director of the pediatric fellowship program, Department of Pediatrics, and director of the patient resiliency program, Brenden-Colson Center for Pancreatic Care. He serves as a consultant senior scientific advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In his lab, Dr. Marks oversees a successful research program
focused on body weight regulation, disease associated wasting (cachexia),
neuroinflammation, childhood failure to thrive and the effects of intrauterine
and the perinatal environment on brain development.
Dr. Marks also actively participates in the school's education mission. He is associate director of the M.D./Ph.D. program, OHSU School of Medicine, and serves on the graduate faculty in the Neuroscience Graduate Program. He has mentored numerous fellows and graduate students in his lab. In 2010, he received the OHSU Faculty Excellence in Education Award.
Prior to accepting this appointment, Dr. Marks met with numerous research leaders across campus to hear their perspectives on the state of research at OHSU and assess its challenges and opportunities.
"My initial goal will be to continue to support and grow those parts of the research mission that are already thriving, while at the same time working to find equitable solutions to the problems and barriers to success that research teams are facing," he said. "I'm also interested in finding ways to support research education and training, as that has always been one of my core values as an academic physician-scientist."
Dr. Marks said he's looking forward to working with Dr. Barr-Gillespie to enhance the coordination and collaboration between the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research and the school, particularly around the areas of research resources, education and entrepreneurship within the university.
"While I know that there will be difficult decisions and choices to be made in the future, I'm optimistic that research at OHSU will continue to thrive, and I look forward to seeing that happen," he said.
Dr. Marks earned his Ph.D. in physiology and neuroscience in 1993 and his M.D. in 1995, both from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He completed a pediatric residency at University of Utah in 1998 and a pediatric endocrinology fellowship at OHSU in 2001. He joined the faculty in 2001. He is a member of the Knight Cancer Institute.