I am pleased to announce that Victor G. Dávila-Román, MD, has been appointedVice Chair of Global Health in the Department of Medicine effective July 1, 2021. Dr. Dávila-Román will also be Director of the Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Dávila-Román is Professor of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Division and Professor of Anesthesiology and of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). Dr. Dávila-Román has been a long-standing and valued member of the Washington University community since 1986. After completing internal medicine residency and cardiovascular disease fellowship at WUSM, he joined the faculty in 1989 and became Professor of Medicine in 2005. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, advanced echocardiography and nuclear cardiology. He currently serves as Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging and Clinical Research Core Laboratory at WUSM. He is also Deputy Editor for the journal Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging.
Dr. Dávila-Román has extensive experience in clinical research and administration and in leading national and international research studies in chronic non-communicable diseases including hypertension and heart failure. His work is sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the Fogarty International Center (FIC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Among his many studies, he is PI on an NHLBI-funded U24 TREIN program titled “Developing T4 Translational Research Capacity for Control of Hypertension in Rwanda,” where he also served as consortium steering committee chair; MPI on an NHLBI-funded UG3 hypertension trial titled: “Addressing HyperteNsion and Diabetes through Community-Engaged Systems in Puno, Peru (ANDES)”; MPI on an NHLBI-funded U24 grant titled “HLB SIMPLe HIV-Research Coordinating Center,” where he is working with collaborators from Botswana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. He is Co-investigator on an NHLBI-Gates funded research grant titled “Household Air Pollution Intervention (HAPIN) Trial.” In addition, he has an extensive track record in capacity building, training and mentoring in low-resource environments. He is MPI on several FIC-funded training grants, including a D43 training grant titled “Research Training: Chronic Non-communicable CVDs and Comorbidities in Peru,” a D71 grant titled “Developing research training in Zambia to address cardiovascular disease epidemic amongst HIV infected people,” and a U2R program titled “Research Training in Data Science for Health in Rwanda.”
As Vice Chair of Global Health, Dr. Dávila-Román will lead initiatives to develop and grow new and existing global health research programs across the Department, with particular focus on communicable diseases such as HIV and COVID-19, and non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes and oncology. He will work closely with the Chair of Medicine and with Dr. William Powderly, the Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health, to enhance faculty and trainee development in global health and to develop innovative research programs across the Department. Our vision for global health in the Department of Medicine focuses on advancing research, education, mentoring, faculty development and capacity-building to promote interdisciplinary and multicenter Global Health programs, interacting with multiple centers across the University such as Dissemination and Implementation Science, Biostatistics, Data Science and Bioethics among others.
As Director of the Washington University Global Health Center, Dr. Dávila-Román will continue to develop the vision, mission, and programs to promote global health research, training and capacity building with our partners around the world and will also collaborate with Washington University Schools and WUSM Department Chairs to promote global health research and training programs across the university. Dr. Sumanth Prabhu, Chief of the Division of Cardiology, “sees great opportunities to work with Dr. Dávila-Román in his new leadership role which will allow the streamlined development and implementation of innovative research and therapies to improve health in diverse populations. Integrating global health initiatives into the cardiovascular clinical research space will have tremendous impact for the division, the department and Washington University.” We look forward to having Dr. Dávila-Román expand and enhance the Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health, the Department of Medicine, and the School of Medicine through his roles as Vice Chair of Global Health in the Department and Director of the Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Dávila-Románon his new leadership role.