Ted Abel, PhD, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine faculty member and director of the Iowa Neuroscience Institute at the UI, will serve as interim chair and departmental executive officer (DEO) of the Department of Pharmacology, effective Nov. 12, 2018.
Abel succeeds Curt Sigmund, PhD, who has led the department since 2010 and has been a UI faculty member since 1991. Sigmund is leaving the UI to serve as chair of the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, beginning Jan. 2, 2019.
“We are delighted that Dr. Abel will lead the Department of Pharmacology, one of five basic science departments in the college,” says Brooks Jackson, MD, MBA, UI vice president for medical affairs and dean of the UI Carver College of Medicine. “I look forward to working with Ted as we conduct a search for a permanent chair of the department.”
Jackson also expressed thanks to Sigmund for nearly three decades of service to the college.
“Dr. Sigmund has been a longtime faculty member here at Iowa and an outstanding scientist, teacher and mentor, and leader for the department and the college,” Jackson says. “We all wish him the best.”
Abel, who came to Iowa in 2017 from the University of Pennsylvania, will continue to lead the Iowa Neuroscience Institute, an interdisciplinary center that includes researchers from across the university focused on the causes, treatments, and prevention of diseases that affect the brain and nervous system.
Abel currently holds a primary faculty appointment in the UI Carver College of Medicine Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and secondary appointments in the college’s Department of Psychiatry and Department of Biochemistry. He also has a faculty appointment in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Details about the search for a permanent chair/DEO of the Department of Pharmacology will be announced at a later date.
A reception for Sigmund is planned for 3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26, location to be determined. More details to come.
As featured in "the loop" Nov 9, 2018