Mary Lee named interim chair of pediatrics

By Mark Shelton	September 19, 2012
UMass Medical School Office of Communications

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Mary M. Lee, MD, professor of pediatrics and cell & developmental biology and director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, will serve as interim chair of the Department of Pediatrics, effective Oct. 28, Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor in Medicine, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the school of medicine, has announced.

Dr. Lee has been at UMMS and UMass Memorial Health Care since 2004, and is currently serving as the vice chair of academic affairs. “As we announced last fall, Marianne E. Felice, MD, who has led the Department of Pediatrics and the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center with tremendous distinction since 1998, will step down from the role of chair in the fall of 2012,” Dr. Flotte said in a joint announcement with UMass Memorial President and CEO John G. O’Brien. “Dr. Felice and her accomplishments are part of the fabric of these institutions and we are grateful for her years of leadership and contributions; she will continue to make deeply important contributions as the principal investigator for our component of the National Children’s Study.”

The search for a successor to Dr. Felice has been taking place under the leadership of Catarina I. Kiefe, MD, PhD, chair and professor of quantitative health sciences.

Lee is a member of the National Scientific Advisory Council for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and is currently chairing the Hood Medical Foundation Scientific Review Panel. She has had important roles in many professional organizations, including membership on the executive council of the American Society of Andrology; the Pediatric Academic Societies Program Committee; the pediatric endocrinology subspecialty board of the American Board of Pediatrics; and on the editorial boards of Endocrinology, Spermatogenesis, the Journal of Andrology and the Journal of Cellular Physiology.

Lee is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on Müllerian-inhibiting substance determination in gonadal disorders and for her research on the regulation of Leydig cell development. She has also achieved recognition for her studies on the effects of environmental endocrine disruptors on growth, puberty and metabolic health and is engaged in clinical trials and collaborative studies on beta cell preservation and improving diabetes management.

She is also a fellow in the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs Pediatric Leadership Development Program.

Lee is a graduate of Harvard College and the SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine, and training programs at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. Lee also serves as the co-director of clinical and translational research in the UMass Memorial Diabetes Center of Excellence.