Susan Bailey Gurley, MD, PhD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Medicine and holder of the Kenneth T. Norris Chair in Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, effective August 1, 2023.
Carolyn Meltzer, MD, dean of the Keck School, announced the hiring in April 2023, noting that Gurley was selected from an impressive cohort of candidates in a comprehensive national search.
Gurley will lead the research, clinical care and education programs of the Department of Medicine, the largest department of the Keck School.
As chair, she will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations of the department while advancing its level of prominence and impact.
She will also provide strategic vision and leadership during a time of significant growth and opportunity.
Gurley joins the Keck School from the Oregon Health & Science University, where she was a tenured professor in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Nephrology and Hypertension. She also served there as division head of nephrology and hypertension since 2018; associate director of the MD/PhD Program since 2020; and interim chair of the Department of Medicine since 2021.
Prior to her time at OHSU, Gurley served in several leadership roles at the Duke University School of Medicine, including associate vice chair for faculty development and diversity in the Department of Medicine and chief of the renal section at the Durham VA Health Care System.
She is an actively funded investigator who has been awarded both clinical and teaching grants.
Her research focuses on unraveling mechanisms underlying the most common etiologies of kidney failure in the developed world — diabetic kidney disease and hypertension — and leverages the power of gene-targeting in mice and mouse models to investigate the renin-angiotensin system.
She has a long-standing commitment to supporting scientists and clinicians who are underrepresented in science and medicine.
Gurley currently serves as a member of the Pathobiology of Kidney Disease Study Section for NIDDK and is on the editorial board of several journals, currently an associate editor of Diabetes.
Gurley earned a BA in Chemistry and a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Mississippi, and she received her medical degree from the Washington University of St. Louis.
She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center, followed by a clinical fellowship and a research fellowship, both in nephrology, at Duke University Medical Center.
She is board-certified in internal medicine and in nephrology.
—Michael Juliani