UAB Vice President for Medicine and Dean of the School of Medicine Robert Rich, MD, announces the appointment of James H. Meador-Woodruff, MD, as chair of the Department of Psychiatry, effective April 1, 2006.

Dr. Meador-Woodruff, is professor and vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, currently one of the top 20 departments in the county. He also serves as associate chair of Research and as research professor in the Molecular and Behavioral Neurosciences Institute. He also directs the department’s Residency Research Track and codirects the Residency Clinical Scholar’s Track.

A graduate of the University of Richmond, Dr. Meador-Woodruff received his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. He completed his residency and postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry at the University of Michigan, where he continued his academic medical career.

His research interests center around the understanding of how different parts of the brain communicate with other parts via a variety of chemical signals, and how this communication is disrupted in schizophrenia. Specifically, he is involved in studying neurochemical circuitry and gene expression in schizophrenia;neurochemical anatomy of dopamine, glutamate systems, and cortiothalamic; and neurochemical circuitry and gene expression in schizophrenia.

Dr. Rich thanks Ray Watts, MD, and the search committee for their efforts and extends a special thank you to Director of Geriatric Psychiatry F. Cleveland Kinney, MD, PhD, for his outstanding leadership as interim chairman of the department.