UC Office of the President
Sam Hawgood, the UC San Francisco Medical School dean who emerged from a national search as the top candidate to be the 10th UCSF chancellor after leading the campus in an interim role, is a highly accomplished scientist, educator and physician with a strong record of leadership.
Hawgood, MBBS, succeeded Susan Desmond-Hellmann as interim chancellor on April 1, 2014. Since then, he has overseen the $4 billion UCSF enterprise, which, in addition to the renowned medical school, includes top-ranking schools of dentistry, nursing and pharmacy, as well as a graduate division and affiliated hospitals.
As interim chancellor, Hawgood has advanced initiatives in both basic and clinical science, as well as precision medicine, bringing together the fields of genetics, molecular research, bioinformatics and medicine to provide predictive and precise therapies for patients. As both medical school dean and interim chancellor, he has worked closely with UCSF Medical Center CEO Mark R. Laret.
At the School of Medicine, Hawgood, 61, has led an organization with an operating budget of more than $1.7 billion, nearly 8,000 faculty and staff, and about 3,655 medical and graduate students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral scholars.
Under his leadership, the school has become the top medical school in the nation in research funding from the National Institutes of Health ($439.6 million in 2013), with many of its departments also leading the nation in their fields, reflecting the caliber of scientific research on campus. In that time, the school also became the only medical school in the nation to rank in the top five in both research- and primary care education, in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual assessment of graduate schools.
The school’s clinical faculty is known widely for world-class medical care through its practice in the top-ranked UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, San Francisco General Hospital & Trauma Center, and the San Francisco Veterans’ Administration Medical Center.
Hawgood has served as dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and as vice chancellor for medical affairs since September 2009, after assuming the role of interim dean in December 2007. He previously had chaired the Department of Pediatrics, having first served in an interim role. He also served as associate director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute.
Numerous organizations and publications have recognized Hawgood’s scientific contributions. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Association of Physicians, and in 2010 was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which provides authoritative advice to Congress, other decision makers and the public as part of the National Academy of Sciences. Membership in the IOM is one of the highest honors for individuals at the top of their fields.
Hawgood has been active for decades in clinical medicine. He served as division chief of the Division of Neonatology, then as chair of Pediatrics and physician-in-chief of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital before becoming dean. He is the president of the UCSF Medical Group, the faculty association that represents more than 1,800 UCSF physicians.
As a clinician, he witnessed the deaths of infants who suffered from respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), a developmental disease caused by the lack of a key lipoprotein called surfactant that lines healthy lungs and enables them to expand with each breath.
Those clinical experiences led Hawgood to focus his research on the proteins associated with pulmonary surfactant, resulting in multi-disciplinary funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute that has supported his work continuously since then. That work has gained him an international reputation in neonatology research.
Hawgood joined UCSF as a research fellow in 1982, working with distinguished scientists John A. Clements, M.D., and William H. Tooley, M.D., both pioneers in the discovery and therapeutic uses of pulmonary surfactant. He has maintained his own laboratory since 1984.
A native of Australia, Hawgood entered medical school at the age of 17, and was graduated with First Class Honors from the University of Queensland in Brisbane with a degree in medicine and surgery (MBBS).
He spent the next year working at a hospital in Hong Kong, and traveled through China, South Asian countries and Russia. After returning to Australia, he trained in pediatrics as a resident, followed by specialization in neonatology as a fellow.
Hawgood and his wife, Jane, a social worker who recently retired after focusing on palliative care for adults, met at the University of Queensland. They have two grown sons.