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Mark B. Taubman, M.D., was formally invested as the Chief Executive Officer of the Â鶹ÊÓƵ and UR Medicine and Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Rochester at a ceremony on Wednesday, June 10, in the medical school’s Class of ’62 Auditorium.

“This is a university on the rise,” said Taubman during the ceremony.  “We’re attracting better and better students, and better and better faculty. We’re growing our clinical enterprise.  We’ve played key roles in developing major vaccines, including the first vaccine to prevent a form of cancer. And the University is now embarking on a data science initiative that will be central to our biomedical research and clinical programs in the years ahead.  There could be nothing more exciting than leading the Medical Center at this time.”

Taubman was appointed in January as the first leader in the University’s history to serve as both Medical Center CEO and dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry.  He was named dean in March 2010, following a nine-month stint as acting CEO while former CEO Bradford Berk, M.D. recovered from a spinal cord injury.  Berk announced last September that he was stepping down from his role as CEO in order to lead the development of the University of Rochester Neurorestoration Institute, a new center that will combine research and state-of-the-art clinical care for individuals recovering from stroke and spinal cord injury.

“There is no doubt that Mark is the right person for the job,” said University of Rochester president and CEO Joel Seligman.  “He has the breadth of understanding, he has the ambition.  He is going to take the Medical Center and build on the great momentum that Brad started and take it even further.”

Since being named CEO, Taubman has worked quickly to execute a strategic plan aimed at re-invigorating the institution’s core missions of patient care, research, and education.

As dean, Taubman is credited with steering the medical school through turbulent financial times, amid nationwide reductions in funding for both research and graduate medical education. He led the creation of the Medical Center’s strategic plan for research that fosters focused, collaborative science. His education strategic plan gave birth to the inter-professional Institute for Innovative Education, a milestone in our efforts to instill in students and trainees the value of teamwork among physicians, nurses and other members of the care team.  He also recruited new leadership to the University of Rochester Medical Faculty Group and has set in motion major improvements in efficiency, patient-centeredness and collaboration with referring clinicians. 

A tireless and enthusiastic advocate for the School, Taubman has driven the medical school’s effort to double the number of professorships, adding 52 endowed professorships at the medical school during the University’s Meliora Challenge campaign. 

A board-certified cardiologist, Taubman came to the Medical Center as chief of the Cardiology Unit and Paul N. Yu Professor in Cardiology in February 2003. He became chair of the Department of Medicine and Charles E. Dewey Professor of Medicine in May 2007 and served in that role until being named as dean. 

Taubman graduated from the New York University School of Medicine and interned at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital before completing his residency and cardiology fellowship training at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital.  He held academic appointments at Harvard Medical school, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. Prior to being recruited to the University of Rochester, he was director of cardiovascular research at Mt. Sinai.