Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine is seeking a dynamic leader with strong credentials in clinical, translational, or health services research for the position of Director, Airways Disease Research Center, Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Immunologic Diseases.

The Wake Forest Airways Disease Research Group at Wake Forest Baptist Health has been internationally recognized for over 20 years in the use of detailed clinical, physiologic, biomarker, and multi-omic data to define disease phenotypes and endotypes and in developing personalized precision therapeutic interventions.  The group plays leading roles in six NIH funded airway disease research networks including four established longitudinal cohorts and actively participates in industry sponsored clinical trials. The Airways Disease Research Center is housed within Piedmont Plaza and includes 7000 square feet of space. It provides easy access to community study participants. Center resources include an independent investigational pharmacy, bronchoscopy lab and pulmonary function testing equipment.

The Airway Disease Research Group is centered in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Immunologic Diseases, which includes 29 faculty and 22 staff members. Both the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship and the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Programs are housed in the Section. The Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship has recently expanded to 15 fellows (five positions per year) and the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship includes 2 fellows. The Section works closely with approximately 40 advanced practice providers to provide clinical care. Faculty participate in a wide range of clinical, educational, and research activities. The Section has excellent and robust clinical programs in critical care medicine, longitudinal and consultative pulmonary medicine, interventional bronchoscopy, allergy and immunology, sleep medicine, and lung cancer screening. In 2022, the Section opened a non-hospital based outpatient Pulmonary Clinic.  This state-of-the-art clinic provides pulmonary, sleep and allergy care to the community and is ideal to grow the Airways clinical program.

Extensive opportunities for research impact are enhanced by Wake Forest Baptist’s partnership with Atrium Health (in 2020). The full Atrium Health clinical footprint includes 42 inpatient and 1100 outpatient facilities with access to over 2.3 million patients in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama and provides robust opportunities to enhance a preeminent Academic Learning Healthcare System. In 2022, Atrium Health began a merger with Advocate Aurora, based in Illinois and Wisconsin that has created the fifth largest health system in the United States. A recognized leader in innovative medical education and groundbreaking research, Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSOM), based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, serves as the academic core of the enterprise.

Specific responsibilities of the position are to:

• Lead and further develop the Airways Disease Research Center, in part through the expansion of extramurally funded research, with regional and network opportunities for expansion.

• With the Section Chief and Respiratory Service Line Director, the Center Director will contribute to expansion and development of marquee clinical programs surrounding Airways Disease.

• Support the career development of research and clinical fellows and faculty and serve as a mentor.

• Further enhance the Airways program to embrace the Academic Learning Healthcare System model. (https://school.wakehealth.edu/features/research/what-is-an-academic-learning-health-system)

• Promote diversity and inclusion in all of its dimensions and nurture a supportive environment that enables faculty and staff to accomplish their professional goals

Align with institutional research focus areas of Aging and Mobility; Alzheimer’s Disease; Neurosciences; Implementation Science and Health Services Research; Health Disparities and Health Equity; and Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes and Metabolism; to extend the impact of the Airways Disease Research Center

The desired characteristics of the incumbent for this position include:

• National academic stature and track record of scholarship and success in obtaining extramural funding.

• Demonstrated leadership and management skills.

• Candidates should meet criteria for an appointment at the Associate Professor or Professor level.

• A focus in COPD (preferred) or asthma is desired though focus in other pulmonary diseases (e.g. interstitial lung disease) will also be considered. The Section is able to provide substantial resources to the successful candidate.

About Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist

Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is a pre-eminent academic health system based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is part of Advocate Health, which is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the fifth-largest nonprofit health system in the United States, created from the combination of Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s two main components are an integrated clinical system – anchored by Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, an 885-bed tertiary-care hospital in Winston-Salem – that includes Brenner Children’s Hospital, five community hospitals, more than 300 primary and specialty care locations and more than 2,700 physicians; and Wake Forest School of Medicine, the academic core of Atrium Health Enterprise and a recognized leader in experiential medical education and groundbreaking research that includes Wake Forest Innovations, a commercialization enterprise focused on advancing health care through new medical technologies and biomedical discovery.

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