Last week, President Capiluto announced that Ilhem Messaoudi, PhD, has been named acting vice president for research at the University of Kentucky.
Dr. Messaoudi will work with a dedicated team of scientists, scholars, staff, and students to build on a decade of tremendous progress led by former vice president for research Lisa Cassis, PhD. Earlier this summer, Dr. Cassis announced her plans to return to the faculty; she is a professor of pharmacology and nutritional sciences in the College of Medicine.
Dr. Messaoudi has served three years as chair of the department of microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics. During her tenure as chair, she added several outstanding faculty as part of an effort to build out and expand our capacity and standing as an institution with expertise in infectious diseases.
She is an accomplished researcher with interests in maternal and child health, substance use disorders, and aging and immunity. Her research team is composed of senior scientists and junior faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Dr. Messaoudi has always loved “team science.” To this day, she has only written one R01 as the sole principal investigator (PI). It is not for lack of publications – she has been part of almost 200 publications – but rather, because she gets genuine joy from working with other people.
This year, she fostered existing collaborations with researchers across departments and colleges as co-PI of the COVID-19 Unified Research Experts (CURE) Alliance. She also helped co-found the relatively new UK-Maternal and Pediatric Research Alliance (MaPRA) that studies pregnancy, perinatology, and pediatrics. Both teams are part of the College of Medicine Alliance Research Initiative.
Dr. Messaoudi earned her bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and her PhD from the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University.