Office of the Vice President
 Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. |
Announcements
Medical School
Dean Receives Presidential Award for Excellence
The Provost's
Office is sponsoring a request for nominations for
UConn and Consortium faculty interested in enrolling
in training, certificate and/or masters programs in
medical, clinical, or health informatics
 |
Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., a nationally prominent
orthopaedic surgeon, bioengineering expert, administrator and
professor, is the Vice President for Health Affairs at the
University of Connecticut and the seventh dean of the UConn
School of Medicine. He is the Van Dusen Endowed Chair in Academic Medicine and is Distinguished Professor of
Orthopaedic Surgery and Chemical, Biomolecular and Materials
Engineering at the University of Connecticut.
Dr. Laurencin’s appointment began in August 2008 and was made
by University President Michael J. Hogan.
Dr. Laurencin is an expert in shoulder and knee surgery and
an international leader in tissue engineering research.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the
American Surgical Association, and the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons, and has been recognized by America's Top
Doctors and America's Top Surgeons. He is widely published in
scholarly journals and holds more than 20 U.S. patents.
President Obama named Dr. Laurencin a 2009 winner of the
Presidential Award for Excellence, awarded to science, math and
engineering mentors. Additionally, Dr. Laurencin was recently
honored by Scientific American Magazine as one of the
top 50 innovators for his groundbreaking technological work in
the regeneration of knee tissue. He was also recently named
among “100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era” by the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers, and is the 2009 winner of the
Pierre Galletti Award, the American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering’s highest honor.
Dr. Laurencin joined the UConn Health Center from the
University of Virginia where he was the Lillian T. Pratt
Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of
Orthopaedic Surgery, as well as the Orthopaedic Surgeon-in-Chief
at the University of Virginia Health System. In addition, he was
designated as a University Professor at the University of
Virginia, one of the university’s most prestigious titles, and
held professorships in Biomedical Engineering and Chemical
Engineering.
Prior to his service at the University of Virginia, Dr.
Laurencin was at Drexel University, where he served as the Helen
I. Moorehead Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering,
Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Clinical
Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Director of Shoulder
Surgery at Hahnemann Hospital.
Raised in North Philadelphia, Dr. Laurencin earned his
undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton
University and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School,
where he was a Magna Cum Laude graduate and the recipient
of the Robinson Award for Excellence in Surgery. During medical
school, he also earned his Ph.D. in biochemical
engineering/biotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology where he was a Hugh Hampton Young Scholar.
Upon completing both of his doctoral degrees, Dr. Laurencin
joined the Harvard University Orthopaedic Surgery program,
ultimately becoming the chief orthopaedic surgery resident at
Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He also completed a fellowship
in sports medicine and shoulder surgery at Cornell University
Medical Center and the prestigious Hospital for Special Surgery,
where he worked with the team physicians for the New York Mets
and St. John’s University in New York.
Among his national leadership responsibilities, Dr. Laurencin
has served as Speaker of the House of the National Medical
Association, and currently serves as Chair of the Board of the
National Medical Association’s W. Montague Cobb Health
Institute. He has been a member of the National Institutes of
Health National Advisory Council for Arthritis, Musculoskeletal
and Skin Diseases and the National Science Advisory Board for
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He currently sits on the
National Science Foundation’s Engineering Directorate Advisory
Committee.
In research, he has been funded by the National Institutes of
Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the
Department of Defense. He has won the prestigious Nicolas Andry
Award from the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons for his
work in musculoskeletal regeneration.
Dr. Laurencin is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences. He is married and has three
children.
Contact Information
Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D.
Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean, School of Medicine
860-679-2594
laurencin@uchc.edu |
