Photo: Kayley Pugliese
Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, professor of medicine, has been named the new director of the Medical Scientist Training Program-funded MD/PhD program at UMass Chan Medical School.
The goal of the UMass Chan MD/PhD program is to train physician-scientists who will make significant contributions to health care and academic medicine. It is one of only 56 MD/PhD programs nationwide supported with Medical Scientist Training Program funding from the National Institutes of Health, representing recognition of its excellence and rigor.
“Physician-scientist training offers a tangible mechanism to foster interactions between clinical and research faculty and enhances the international reputation of the training programs on our medical campus,” Dr. Pukkila-Worley said. “I am honored to be our MD/PhD program’s next director.”
Pukkila-Worley succeeds Catarina Kiefe, MD, PhD, the Melvin S. and Sandra L. Cutler Chair in Biomedical Research and professor of population & quantitative health sciences, who is stepping down as director of the program, but continuing her roles in scientific research and education at UMass Chan.
Pukkila-Worley has served under Dr. Kiefe as the associate director of the MD/PhD program and is currently serving as the inaugural director of the Robert W. Finberg Physician-Scientist Training Program in the Department of Medicine.
Pukkila-Worley is an infectious disease physician scientist who joined UMass Chan in 2014. He serves as attending physician on the infectious disease inpatient consult service at UMass Memorial Medical Center. His laboratory, funded by the NIH for more than 10 years, studies host-pathogen interactions and bacterial pathogenesis.
He has been a mentor and advisor to dozens of MD/PhD graduate students, research scientists, postdoctoral trainees and faculty members.
He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2024 and is the recipient of the 2024 Dean’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Graduate Education and the 2021 Outstanding Foundational Medical Educator Award.
