Ben Ho Park to become Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that Ben Ho Park will become associate dean for postdoctoral affairs effective Oct. 1. In this role, Dr. Park will provide oversight for the training of postdoctoral fellows who have research-only appointments in the school of medicine. Dr. Martha Zeiger, the previous associate dean for postdoctoral affairs, became chair of surgery at the University of Virginia on Sept. 1, 2017.

Dr. Park is professor of oncology in the school of medicine with a joint appointment in the Whiting School of Engineering. He is the associate director of the hematology/oncology fellowship training program and associate director for research training and education at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Park is also a faculty member in three graduate training programs in the school of medicine and one in the school of engineering.

Dr. Park received his undergraduate degree in biology with honors from the University of Chicago in 1989. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received both his M.D. and Ph.D. (in immunology) and where he also completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship training in hematology and oncology. Dr. Park came to Johns Hopkins in 1998 for a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein at the Kimmel Cancer Center. He then joined the faculty in 2002, attaining the rank of professor in 2015.

Dr. Park is a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer genetics and therapeutics. He directs a research laboratory that focuses on using genetic approaches to develop new diagnostics and therapies for breast cancer. In particular, Dr. Park's laboratory is investigating how circulating plasma tumor DNA may guide the development of individualized therapies in early stage breast cancer.

In addition to being a leading breast cancer physician-scientist, Dr. Park is also an outstanding teacher and mentor for graduate students, medical students, medical residents, clinical fellows and research postdoctoral fellows. Among his many roles in education, Dr. Park serves as Thayer Firm faculty in the Johns Hopkins Osler Internal Medicine residency program. He has served as a member of numerous dissertation and thesis committees, and he has participated on many graduate program and postdoctoral program training grants. Dr. Park has been a member of the Postdoctoral Fellows Advisory Committee in the school of medicine since 2014.

Dr. Park has received numerous awards and honors recognizing his roles as a teacher and mentor. Dr. Park received the Cancer Center Director's Teaching Award in Basic Science in 2005 and 2014 and the Cancer Center's Teaching Award in Clinical Science in 2010. That same year, he also received The Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Medicine's Housestaff Teaching Award. Most recently, Dr. Park was selected to be the Grand Marshal at the 2015 Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Convocation.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Park and welcoming him as associate dean.

Sincerely,

Roy C. Ziegelstein, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Sarah Miller Coulson and Frank L. Coulson, Jr., Professor of Medicine
Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Education
Vice Dean for Education, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine