DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIAN-SCIENTIST AND NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED PULMONOLOGIST ROBERTO MACHADO, MD, NAMED CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

BALTIMORE, July 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) Dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, announced today that Roberto Machado, MD, Chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep, and Occupational Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, has been appointed the new Chair of the Department of Medicine, the largest department at UMSOM with more than 400 full-time faculty members and 12 divisions. He will also serve as the Physician-In-Chief at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Dr. Machado will assume his new position in November and will be invested as the Theodore E. Woodward Chair of Medicine. He currently serves as the Dr. Calvin H. English Professor of Medicine at Indiana University, and has received more than $20.5 million in total funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research on pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary complications of sickle cell disease.

Highly Accomplished Researcher and Leader

His research has contributed to the discovery of pulmonary hypertension as a major risk factor for death in adult patients with sickle cell disease. He has also conducted pivotal studies that furthered the understanding of pulmonary arterial hypertension and how sphingolipid metabolic pathways contribute to the condition.

"Dr. Machado brings a rare combination of scientific expertise, clinical leadership, and a long-standing commitment to mentorship and education," said Dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean. "His experience leading complex clinical operations at a major academic medical center will be invaluable as he advances the Department of Medicine --elevating its research impact, enhancing clinical excellence, and shaping the future of academic medicine at the School of Medicine."

Leadership Transition

Dr. Machado will succeed Dr. Stephen Davis, MBBS, who has served as Chair of the Department since 2009. Under Dr. Davis's leadership, the department expanded and evolved in all its mission areas, increasing its extramural funding to more than $175 million annually and securing renewed funding for the University of Maryland's Clinical and Translational Science Award, and the foundation of the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing. The department's clinical footprint has continued to grow over the past five years with increases in total patient encounters and other important metrics.

As part of this transition, Dr. Davis was promoted to Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Partnerships and will also continue to serve as the Director of the General Clinical Research Center and Vice President of Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

"I am extremely grateful to Dr. Davis for his dedicated leadership of the department for the past 16 years and for his passionate commitment to our faculty and school, and for agreeing to serve as Chair over the next few months to ensure a seamless handover to new leadership," said Dean Gladwin. "He will continue to contribute to the important research mission of UMSOM and UMB and will help us form crucial strategic partnerships in his new role."

Significant Growth as Division Chief

While serving as Division Chief at the Indiana University School of Medicine for the past eight years, Dr. Machado brought significant growth, nearly doubling the size of the division with recruitment of new faculty, which now stands at 92 full-time faculty, up from 55 when he was hired. He also helped increase research funding to $11.4 million per year compared to $3.4 million when he took the position in 2017.

Dr. Machado has co-authored more than 170 peer-reviewed papers published in high-impact journals including JAMA, American Journal of Respiratory Care and Critical Care Medicine and CHEST. His studies have investigated such wide-ranging respiratory medicine topics as the use of sildenafil therapy in patients with sickle cell disease and pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary hypertension associated with methamphetamine use, and exhaled breath analysis as a biomarker in chronic lung disease.

As a clinical investigator, he has a noteworthy h-index of 51 with more than 11,400 citations for his research publications. The h-index is a metric used to assess the impact and productivity of a researcher's publications, and an index of 51 means a researcher has published an average of 51 papers with each having been cited at least 51 times.

Through his well-funded lab, Dr. Machado will continue investigating the development of novel diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers for patients with pulmonary hypertension by using human oligonucleotide microarray platforms, genetics and bioinformatics tools.

"I look forward to working alongside such a prolific scientist and educator who is also deeply committed to excellence in clinical care," said Bert W. O'Malley, President and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center. "Dr. Machado's leadership will be instrumental as we uncover new ways to deliver on UMMC and UMSOM's shared mission to prepare the next generation of world-class physicians and take on some of the most pressing health care challenges of today and tomorrow."

Mentor and Award-Winning Scientist

Dedicated to developing the next generation of clinician-scientists, Dr. Machado has mentored more than 20 post-and pre-doctoral trainees and serves as the Principal Investigator on two training grants at Indiana University, including the T32 entitled Physiology and Clinical Mechanisms of Lung Disease via the Combined Adult and Pediatrics Pulmonary Research training program (CAPPRI), which trains exceptional MD and PhD scientists in adult and pediatric pulmonary research, and a T35, which is focused on increasing medical student engagement with biomedical research.

For his exceptional contributions to science, he has received the Bench to Bedside Award from the Office of Rare Disease at NIH. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has served in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Respiratory Integrative Biology and Translational Research Study Section and the NHLBI Institutional Training Mechanism Review Committee.

"It is a tremendous honor to join the University of Maryland community and to serve as Chair of the Department of Medicine at UMSOM," said Dr. Machado. "I look forward to joining this incredibly talented team to help address our generational health challenges in these dynamic times for academic medicine."

Dr. Machado earned his medical degree from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. He completed residency training in internal medicine at the University of Miami where he was named chief resident. He then did a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and at the NIH's Critical Care Medicine Department and the NHLBI.

He began his clinical career at the NIH where he spent four years working in the Clinical Center and conducting research at the National Institutes of Digestive Diabetes & Kidney Diseases and at the NHLBI. He then took a tenure track position at the University of Chicago and moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was promoted to associate professor of medicine and became director of the outpatient program in pulmonary and critical care medicine.

Issued on behalf of Newswise, online resource for knowledge-based news at www.newswise.com

SOURCE University of Maryland School of Medicine