Medical School Professor Golan Named Dean for Graduate Education

Harvard Medical School professor David E. Golan ’75 was named the school’s first dean for graduate education, Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier announced last Thursday.

The new post is the latest development in the school’s strategic planning process and follows the appointment of Thomas Michel ’77 as the new dean for education this June.

Previously, only one dean was responsible for all education programs at the Medical School. Golan and Michel will now join Dean for Medical Education Jules L. Dienstag to start implementing recommendations proposed by the strategic planning advisory groups.

Flier said in a wide-ranging interview this fall that he intends to present the results of the strategic planning process to the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing board—in early December.

Golan will direct the Program in Graduate Education, a new initiative which aims to bring together the Medical School’s seven Ph.D programs—three of which span across different faculties.

“It won’t be a new Ph.D program,” Golan said. “It will be a way with working with all the Ph.D programs and build on structures and resources that the individual programs have.”

Though the program is still in its early planning stages and a time table has yet to be set, Golan said he will be bringing together faculty to lay out possible plans over the next few months.

“Flier’s only mandate was that we get started,” Golan said.

There is currently little interaction among the seven individual graduate programs, Golan said. Four of the Ph.D programs are based in the Medical School Quadrangle in the Longwood Medical Area, and the remaining three—biophysics, chemical biology, and systems biology—are University-wide initiatives.

Golan said that he hopes to identify and revamp components of the curriculum that are currently “relatively underdeveloped.”

Although Golan said he does not know what these areas are at this point, he added that department chairs have been very receptive to proposed efforts.

Golan will also oversee the master’s degree programs at the Medical School and direct the educational component of the Harvard Catalyst, a pan-University initiative providing resources to all Harvard affiliates. Established in May, the Catalyst is primarily funded by a $117.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to use research to address health problems.

Golan will also advise Flier to help design global education programs and establish research partnerships to provide opportunities for Harvard faculty and students working both abroad and at Harvard.

Golan will continue to practice at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a hematologist and clinician-teacher.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.