JENNIFER PIETENPOL was named executive vice president for research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, effective May 1.
Pietenpol will continue to serve as director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. She is also the B.F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology and a professor of biochemistry, cancer biology and otolaryngology.
According to Vanderbilt, Pietenpol will assume a portion of the responsibilities held by Lawrence Marnett, associate vice chancellor for research and senior associate dean for biomedical sciences. Marnett was named dean of basic sciences in the School of Medicine for Vanderbilt University.
In this role, Marnett will oversee the basic science departments, centers and institutes that are remaining with the university after the legal separation of the university and the medical center.
As executive vice president for research, Pietenpol will support the basic science programs in clinical departments, centers and institutes that will be housed in new VUMC. She will be responsible for leading the infrastructure that will advance much of the medical center’s basic research enterprise.
As director of VICC, Pietenpol has successfully renewed Vanderbilt-Ingram’s NCI designation as a comprehensive cancer center twice with exceptional merit ratings.
She has served on the Institute of Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Forum. In 2008, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Cancer Advisory Board.
She was a member of the board of directors of the American Association for Cancer Research, and serves on numerous other cancer-related scientific advisory boards including the Blue Ribbon Panel to advise the vice president’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
In 2012, she was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has received numerous honors for her research, most recently the Medical Research Advancement Award from the T.J. Martell Foundation.
