Rebecca Cooke, MBA, has been appointed vice dean for Administration and Finance for the Perelman School of Medicine. She most recently served as chief operating officer of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Cooke’s new position also marks a return to Philadelphia, where she received her MBA degree in health-care management from the Wharton School and worked for CHOP and Thomas Jefferson University.
As COO at the Feinberg School, Cooke was responsible for strategic, operational, and financial leadership. She also fostered collaboration with hospital affiliates and other schools, a skill that fits well with the collaborative and interdisciplinary environment of Penn and Penn Medicine. Before becoming COO, she was senior associate dean for administration. In her earlier position as administrator of Feinberg’s Department of Medicine, Cooke oversaw strategic planning, management of the clinical practice, research grants, and educational programs for 15 sub-specialty divisions. During that time, she helped double the department’s clinical revenue in five years by developing faculty incentives and increasing efficiency of staff and space.
Cooke graduated magna cum laude from Towson University, where she majored in business administration and health sciences management. At the Wharton School, she was awarded the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania’s Student Award.
Edna Foa, PhD, director of Penn’s Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, received the Inaugural Career Achievement Award from the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation. The award was given the award for her pioneering work on the treatment and understanding of OCD. Foa devoted her academic career to study the psychopathology and treatment of anxiety disorders - primarily obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and social phobia. She is currently one of the world leading experts in these areas.
Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and honors including TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.
Jennifer Myers, MD, associate professor of Clinical Medicine and director of Quality and Safety Education for the Perelman School of Medicine, was one of five to be named to the first class of Macy Faculty Scholars by the Josiah Macy Jr Foundation. This program seeks to develop the next generation of national leaders in medical and nursing education by recognizing and nurturing faculty who have shown great promise as committed educators. Each scholar submitted a proposal for education reform at his or her home institution and will receive support and mentorship from the Foundation to pursue that project. Myers’ work will focus on designing and implementing undergraduate and graduate medical education curricula in the field of quality and safety and aligning these educational efforts with Penn Medicine’s Blueprint for Quality and Patient Safety.
Dan Rader, MD, director of Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine & Lipid Clinic, has been chosen to lead the newly formed Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics, which is a part of the Department of Medicine. Rader, who is also associate director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, will help facilitate the growth and development of research programs in these areas.
