Chicago, Illinois, USA: The University of Illinois College of Medicine has appointed Indian-American physician-scientist Jerry A. Krishnan as interim vice dean for research, entrusting him with a key leadership role in advancing the institution’s research mission.
Krishnan will continue serving as a professor at University of Illinois Chicago while assuming his new responsibilities. In this role, he will oversee the college’s basic, clinical, and translational research activities across all three campuses.
According to the institution, Krishnan will collaborate closely with university leadership to strengthen the research portfolio and further integrate research with clinical practice and academic programs.
He will also supervise several major research centers and initiatives, including those focused on cardiovascular health, global health, magnetic resonance research, women and gender studies, artificial intelligence in healthcare, menopause research, and translational neuroscience.
In addition to strategic leadership, Krishnan will mentor faculty in research development, oversee graduate programs including master’s and PhD degrees, allocate research resources such as funding and laboratory space, and ensure compliance with institutional and regulatory standards. He will work alongside Bellur Prabhakar, interim senior associate dean for research, in fulfilling these responsibilities.
A distinguished physician-scientist, Krishnan’s research has primarily focused on chronic lung disease, COVID-19, and Long COVID. He has extensive expertise in multicenter cohort studies, clinical trials, and clinical guideline development, and has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed publications.
Krishnan has held prominent positions on several national research and advisory bodies, including serving as former chair of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Clinical Trials Review Committee.
He currently chairs the NHLBI/NIH Observational Study Monitoring Board for the U.S. ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis Phenotyping Consortium and is a member of the scientific oversight committee for the NIAID/NIH RECOVER Long COVID clinical trials consortium.
At UIC, he also serves as associate vice chancellor for population health sciences and executive director of the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design.
Krishnan earned his MD with honors from Baylor College of Medicine and completed his residency and fellowship training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He also holds a PhD in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
