Mary Klotman Named Duke’s First Executive Vice President for Health Affairs

In these roles, Klotman and Albanese will work in close partnership to build deep alignment between Duke’s academic and clinical missions, and will establish shared goals and strategies, closely aligned organizational performance metrics and other mechanisms to ensure effective connectivity and coordination across Duke Health. Each of them will be accountable for building a shared culture that capitalizes on the ways in which health science research and discovery and health delivery benefit each other, including agreed-upon goals and strategies that will be reflected in their individual performance assessments and incentives.

In addition, the governing boards of the health system and university will regularly monitor the effectiveness of this new leadership structure.

In a message to the campus community, Price noted the new leadership structure is designed to “position Duke for success in the face of the challenging landscape for academic medical centers, including the changing healthcare marketplace, the need for more efficient and effective patient care models, and the ongoing imperative to support high-quality medical research.”

Klotman will be responsible for strategic, academic, and budgetary oversight and authority for the School of Medicine and its affiliated academic institutes and programs. She will serve as the university official providing strategic oversight of university academic health affairs, in close coordination and collaboration with the president, provost, executive vice president, and the CEO of Duke University Health System. She will also oversee the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and, with the provost, oversee other relevant interdisciplinary centers including the Global Health Institute and the Margolis Center for Health Policy.

“Mary is an exceptional physician-scientist, leader and colleague who is deeply committed to advancing biomedical science and human health through education, research and patient care, and I look forward to working with her in this additional capacity,” Price said.

As part of the leadership restructuring process that created Klotman’s dual role of executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, Price charged a consultative committee with engaging internal and external experts and providing advice and feedback on how to optimize Duke Health’s leadership structure to advance excellence in Duke’s academic and clinical missions.

“I am grateful to the members of the consultative committee, as well as the individuals they interviewed, for their valuable perspectives and thoughtful guidance,” Price said. “I am confident that this new structure, and Mary and Craig’s very able leadership and coordination across our academic and clinical missions, will position Duke exceptionally well to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.”

An infectious diseases specialist, Klotman is the R.J. Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Duke and has served as dean of the School of Medicine since 2017. As dean, she has overseen advancements in research, teaching and administration that have propelled the School of Medicine to new levels of national recognition and research activity. Under her leadership the school has also implemented significant new programs to advance diversity, equity and inclusion; assure scientific integrity; and recruit, retain and reward outstanding faculty.

“Academic health systems like Duke play a unique and essential role: we care for the sickest patients, make the discoveries that drive new therapies, train future health care leaders, and engage in vital community partnerships,” Klotman said. “I look forward to working closely with Craig and his team to continue the critical integration of our missions – enhancing Duke’s ability to address the needs of an increasingly complex world during a time of immense change.” 

Klotman’s research interests focus on the molecular pathogenesis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus 1 (HIV-1) infection. Her work demonstrated that HIV resides in and evolves separately in kidney cells, a critical step in HIV-associated kidney disease.

She previously served as the Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she co-directed Mount Sinai’s Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute.

Klotman earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from Duke, and completed residency training and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Duke. Prior to her appointment as dean, she served seven years as chair of the Department of Medicine in the Duke University School of Medicine.