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Dean’s Office Update – April 2026

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Dean's Note by Steven Leach, MD

Dear Colleagues, 

There has been a great deal of good news, including some very big announcements, to celebrate at Geisel the past few weeks. 

I am thrilled to begin with the most significant of those announcements: Dartmouth has appointed Jennifer Hunt, MD, MEd, as the next dean of the Geisel School of Medicine. Dr. Hunt will join us on August 1, 2026, making her the first woman to serve as dean in Geisel’s 229-year history—an important and exciting milestone for our school. 

Dr. Hunt comes to us from the University of Florida College of Medicine, where she currently serves as interim dean. An internationally recognized head and neck and molecular pathologist, she brings deep expertise across research, education, and clinical leadership. At Florida, she led a large and complex academic medical enterprise spanning two campuses, ten affiliated research institutes and centers, and a National Cancer Institute–designated cancer center. I am confident she will be an outstanding dean for Geisel and a strong partner for Dartmouth Health, and I very much look forward to welcoming her this summer. 

This good news arrived on the heels of another major appointment we announced on March 26: Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, as the new Director of the Dartmouth Cancer Center. Dr. Herbst is an internationally recognized leader in lung cancer research and treatment whose work over more than three decades has helped transform cancer care. He joins us from Yale, where he currently serves as Deputy Director and Chief of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital. We are excited to welcome Dr. Herbst to our Dartmouth community and look forward to the leadership, vision, and expertise he will bring to our cancer research, education, and clinical missions. He will begin his role on July 13. 

Please join me in thanking Konstantin Dragnev for his dedicated service as interim director of the Dartmouth Cancer Center. His leadership during this transition helped position the center for continued momentum as we welcome our next director. 

I also want to take a moment to celebrate one of the most joyful annual milestones in the life of a medical school: Match Day. On March 20, we gathered to celebrate the MD Class of 2026 as they learned where they will begin their residency training. Match Day is a powerful moment, representing years of dedication, growth, and perseverance. It was a pleasure to see our students surrounded by family, friends, faculty, and staff as they opened their envelopes and took the next step in their medical journeys. Wherever they match, they carry with them the values of Geisel and a deep commitment to caring for patients and communities.  

Finally, I’d like to recognize a remarkable example of generosity and commitment to Geisel’s future. I am deeply grateful to our Board of Advisors chair, Patty Sacks, and her husband, Doug D’80, for their $5 million gift to support early career faculty at Geisel. Through the creation of endowed early career professorships, this gift advances one of our core strategic priorities: recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty at every stage of their careers. Just as importantly, it ensures that early career faculty have the resources and support they need to bring fresh ideas, diverse perspectives, and innovative scholarship into our collaborative academic environment. 

Thank you to everyone whose work, mentorship, and generosity continue to move our school forward. 

Warm regards,
Steve 

DEAN'S OFFICE UPDATES

Faculty Affairs Updates

Congratulations to the following faculty members who were promoted effective July 1, 2026:
  • Craig Westling, Dr, PH, promoted to Associate Professor of Health Policy and Clinical Practice
  • ​Rebecca J. Thompson, MD, promoted to Associate Professor of Neurology and of Medical Education
  • ​Matthew A. Roginski, MD, MPH, promoted to Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and of Medicine

Research Updates

The research efficiency task force is continuing to make progress and expects to have a draft report of recommendations this April. We will be setting up a Geisel AI Networking group to support faculty, staff, and trainees who are using AI in their work. A survey will be sent round to assess likely use of the group and specific interests, we are grateful for a strong survey response so we can understand AI needs Geisel-wide!

DEPARTMENT & CENTER UPDATES

Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Biochemistry and Cell Biology wrapped up a busy interview season with seven faculty candidate visits. Big thanks go out to the search committee for guiding us to these remarkable candidates. Many thanks also to everyone who organized and participated in the interview visits!

Professor Soni Lacefield’s team published a paper combining mathematical modeling and wet lab experiments to gain insight into meiosis (Molecular Biology of the Cell). Check out more about the Lacefield lab in the Geisel News story about her recent Ira Herskowitz Award from the Genetics Society of America.

BCB research has also hit the bioRxiv preprint pipeline. Check out the latest work from the labs of Assistant Professor Prerna Malaney , Professor Duane Compton, and Professor Dean Madden.

Biomedical Data Science

Dr. Indrani Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science, is delighted to share that the Bhattacharya Lab at Dartmouth has three accepted poster abstracts that were presented at the PSMA and Beyond Conference in Louisiana on March 26-27! ​

The abstracts showcased the lab's latest research on machine learning methods to assist in PET/CT interpretation and clinical translation. Three superstars from the Bhattacharya Lab at Dartmouth, Bashirul Azam Biswas, Biratal Wagle, and Grant Chau attended the conference to discuss their work. Their abstracts can be found here.

Thanks to the Munck Pfefferkorn Award from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, the ACS IRG Award, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and the Department of Biomedical Data Science Travel Award in supporting The Bhattacharya Lab's attendance at this conference!

Dr. Indrani Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science, is delighted to share that The Bhattacharya Lab at Dartmouth has three accepted poster abstracts that were presented at the PSMA and Beyond Conference in Louisiana on March 26-27! The abstracts showcased the lab's latest research on machine learning methods to assist in PET/CT interpretation and clinical translation. Three superstars from the Bhattacharya Lab at Dartmouth, Bashirul Azam Biswas, Biratal Wagle, and Grant Chau attended the conference to discuss their work. The abstracts are described below and can be found here.

1. Biswas BA, Wagle BR, Yang Z, Maeder ME, Yu JB, Bhattacharya I, Uncertainty- and tracer-aware multi-tracer, pan-cancer lesion segmentation on PET/CT images. Bashirul presented his work on how to quantify prediction uncertainty and leverage it to improve lesion segmentation in multi-tracer whole body PET/CT scans.

2. Wagle BR, Biswas BA, Maeder ME, Yu JB, Bhattacharya I, Automated identification of prostate cancer patients with high-risk bone metastasis eligible for radiation therapy from whole-body PSMA-PET/CT scans. Biratal presented his work on how we use machine learning to automatically identify prostate cancer patients with high risk bone metastatis eligible for prophylactic radiation therapy.

3. Chau G, Biswas BA, Wagle BR, Maeder ME, Yu JB, Bhattacharya I, Improving Metastasis Detection on PSMA-PET with Whole-Body Atlases and Deep Learning. Grant presented his work on how we develop population-level prostate cancer metastasis distribution atlases and integrate them for improved cancer detection.

Thanks to the Munck Pfefferkorn Award from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, the ACS IRG award, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and the Department of Biomedical Data Science for supporting these studies! Also, congratulations to Bashirul on getting the travel award from the Department of Biomedical Data Science for attending the conference! Blessed to have such a great team to lead these exciting studies and represent The Bhattacharya Lab at Dartmouth, for the first time, in LA!

Center for Global Health Equity

The Center for Global Health Equity sent three students to Capitol Hill on March 19 - 20 to advocate for global health education! Shannon Battle MPH'26, Dinah Sher Gongora MPH'27, and Neha Uppalapati MPH'26 joined  CGHE Director Dr. Lisa V. Adams MED’90, the Assistant Dean for Public Health Programs, Dr. Alicia Battle, and the CGHE Board Chair, Patricia Doykos D’86 to meet with congressional representatives to champion the importance of global health training initiatives. These future healthcare leaders embody Dartmouth’s commitment to creating equitable healthcare access worldwide.

Center for Quantitative Biology

Genomic Data Science Core Presents a Step‑by‑Step SOP for Using Pixi—A Fast, Reproducible Package & Environment Manager The Genomic Data Science Core (GDSC) is releasing a concise Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that shows how to adopt Pixi, a lightweight manager for software packages and computational environments. ​

Learn how to streamline software management, accelerate environment setup, and ensure that all members of your lab can reproduce analyses reliably across any computing platform. Pixi creates a single, declarative project file (YAML) that lists every required package and the commands needed to run your analyses. All dependencies are recorded in one pixi.toml and locked in pixi.lock, providing an audit trail that can be archived with publications. On HPC, each job invokes Pixi to guarantee identical environments across nodes, meeting the reproducibility standards demanded by journals and funders throughout the research lifecycle.

The same project runs unchanged in RStudio, VS Code, or on the Discovery HPC cluster, eliminating platform‑specific tweaks. Teams can clone the repository, follow the SOP, and be productive within an hour, allowing training to focus on biology rather than dependency conflicts. Why Pixi?

  • Speed: Powered by the Rust‑based UV solver, Pixi resolves environments up to ten times faster than Conda or Mamba.
  • Reproducibility: One project file guarantees identical installations on any machine, eliminating drift between laptops, servers, and HPC clusters.
  • Simplicity: A single command (pixi run <task>) replaces the series of Conda steps for creating, activating, and updating environments.

What the SOP Covers

  • Local RStudio–Create a Pixi project, list required R/Python packages, and launch RStudio directly from the Pixi environment for consistent library versions.
  • Remote VS Code–Clone the Pixi project on a server/cloud, start a VS Code remote session, and work with interpreters/kernels automatically bound to the Pixi environment.
  • Discovery HPC–Submit jobs that invoke Pixi to build the environment on each compute node, guaranteeing reproducible pipelines (RNA‑seq, ChIP‑seq, phylogenetics, etc.).

Best‑Practice Highlights

  • Project layout:Separate raw data, processed data, scripts, and results into clearly labeled folders.
  • Version control:Keep toml/pixi.lock under Git (or another VCS) together with your analysis code.
  • Task definitions:Encode common commands (e.g., “run alignment”, “generate QC report”) in the Pixi file so teammates can run them with a single line.

You can find more information on this project here.

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice

Dr. Craig Westling was promoted to Associate Professor. Effective July 1, 2026.

Dr. Garrett Wasp was the recipient of the inaugural Dartmouth Investigators Inspiring Vital Exploration (DRIVE) Award for his proposal, "Preparing NavPORT for Multisite Testing: Feasibility, Peer Support, and Infrastructure Development.”  The $25K award will allow him to collect preliminary data on the intervention designed as part of his E-STaR project with Dr. Phil Schaner, which focuses on improving timely care for head and neck cancer patients.

Dr. Paul Barr has been invited to give a keynote address at the 2026 International Conference on Communication in Healthcare to be held in Belfast, Ireland. ​

Dr. Barr gave a podcast interview with NACDA (National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging).

Epidemiology

The Pilot Program is excited to announce the awardees from the last call:

  • Solomon Diamond, Associate Professor of Engineering, and Co-Director Design Initiative at the Dartmouth Engineering Thayer School—Youth exposure to VOCs and ultrafine particles from desktop 3D printing in afterschool programs.

  •  Julie Sanville, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Dartmouth Health where her specialty is pediatric gastroenterology Gut-brain CF: Neurobehavioral/Neuropsychiatric function and the microbiome in pediatric cystic fibrosis.

  • ​Chun-Chieh Lin, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Dartmouth Health—Ultrafast molecular analysis of atypical placentas for genomic anomalies.

For more information, visit the Pilot Program Website or contact us at epi.pilots@dartmouth.edu.

Margaret Karagas for the 3rd year served as an instructor for the Interdisciplinary School for Environmental Crisis (ISEC) an educational program of ARISTEiA aimed at delivering an innovative approach to understanding the environmental crisis held in Euboea Greece, March 20-25.

Top students from around the globe took part in the rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, including two Dartmouth alumni – Ariana Hadari, QBS MS program graduate and Daniel Lam a Dartmouth undergraduate completing his MS in Environmental & International Affairs at Georgetown.

The Department of Epidemiology is excited to welcome Dr. Jane Chen as a Senior Research Scientist and Dr. Courtney Schiebout, a graduate of our QBS PhD program, as a Senior Programmer/Analyst. Dr. Chen will be working in the Karagas Lab and Dr. Schiebout will be focusing on the NIH Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes grant and other research projects.

Medical Education

Seminar:
April, 21 - Journal Club TBA

All  sessions are free and open to join. Please contact Kerry Schmitt for more information.

Papers:
Pokorny, A., & Borges, N.J. Debunking the Myth of the Specialty Soulmate. Medical Science Educator, 2026.
​Vibell J & Thesen T. Brain Imaging Essentials: Current Tools and Their Capabilities. Cambridge University Press, 2026.

Microbiology & Immunology

Congratulations to Dr. David Ritz (Schultz lab) on a successful PhD thesis defense on March, 10.
Recognitions:
​

 

Molecular & Systems Biology


Dr. Isobel Bowles, a post-doctoral associate in the lab of Assistant Professor Esteban Orellana, received an RNA Society Research Presentation Fellowship, to give a talk about her research at the 2026 RNA Society Annual Meeting in Montreal, May 26-31, 2026.

Two Dartmouth undergraduates, Amanda S. Wang D’29 and Brandon S. Lee D’28, received awards from the Undergraduate Research Assistantships at Dartmouth (URAD) program to perform research in the lab of Assistant Professor Chengxiang Qiu.

Professor Gio Bosco has a paper accepted in PLOS ONE titled "GAL4-based functional screen of neuropeptides in Drosophila reproduction." It is noteworthy that this study was a collaborative effort between two undergraduates, Shinae Park, a former Dartmouth neuroscience major, and Caliope Marin, a participant  in Dartmouth's Academic Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE) program, now a graduate student  at UCSD, and two post-doctoral associates, Dr. Madhumala K. Sadanandappa and Dr. Shivaprasad H. Sathyanarayana, both now in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at DHMC.

  Save the Date

    • May 8 - Class of 2026 Medical Student & Faculty Awards Ceremony, 1:00 PM, DHMC Auditorium H (Reception to Follow at 2:30 PM, Auditoria A - D)
    • May 9 - Class of 2026 Medical Student Investiture, 9:00 AM, Lebanon Opera House (Ticketed Event)
    • May 20 - Master of Public Health Independent Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) Poster Session, 4:00 PM, DHMC Rubin 4 Atrium
    • June 3 - State of the Medical School & Reception, 4:30 PM, DHMC Auditorium G
    • June 11, Class of 2026 Health Sciences Awards Ceremony, 4:30 PM, DHMC Auditoria H, (Reception to Follow at 6:00 PM, DHMC Auditoria A-D)
    • June 12, Class of 2026 Health Sciences Investiture, 2:00 PM, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center
    • June 14, Dartmouth College Commencement, 9:00 AM, Dartmouth College Green

More at Geisel Events Calendar

The Dean's Office Update is an internal news platform for Geisel School of Medicine faculty, students, and staff.