Nancy Rusch, Ph.D., has been named director of the Translational Research Institute’s (TRI) Education & Career Development Program. Rusch chairs the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the College of Medicine. Rusch has mentored medical and graduate students, research and clinical fellows, and junior faculty for more than 25 years, and received several mentoring and teaching awards at UAMS. Graduate School Dean Bobby McGehee, Ph.D., will assist Rusch.
Mary Aitken, M.D., M.P.H., has been named director of TRI’s KL2 Career Development Awards Program. Aitken is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and director of the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation. Jonathan Dranoff, M.D., chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, will assist with the KL2 program. Aitken and Dranoff, both clinician scientists, will work together to further develop the KL2 program, which seeks to support the career development of promising clinical and basic translational researchers across UAMS.