Degen Named Acting Vice President for Research at UC

Sandra J. Degen, PhD, has been appointed acting vice president for research for the University of Cincinnati.

Reporting directly to Jane E. Henney, MD, senior vice president and provost for health affairs, Dr. Degen will be responsible for the strategic development of UC's research goals. She will monitor UC's research mission and oversee related intellectual property and communications issues.

Dr. Degen, associate chair for academic affairs in UC's Department of Pediatrics, has also been serving in the provost's office as associate senior vice president for health affairs.

She grew up in Los Angeles and attended college at the University of California, San Diego, where she majored in chemistry. She attended graduate school in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington and received her PhD in 1982. Then followed two years of postdoctoral work at the Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland.

Dr. Degen was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics at UC and the Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation in 1985. She was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1992 and to professor in 1997.

A Pew Scholar in the biomedical sciences, Dr. Degen's scientific interests include the biological function of the blood coagulation agent prothrombin, as well as a protein, identified in her lab, that is involved in growth control. She has enjoyed continuous grant support since she received her first academic position and is currently principal investigator on two National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants.

Her many honors include an Established Investigatorship from the American Heart Association, membership of the Hematology II Study Section at the NIH, and participation in the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program.

Dr. Degen is the Medical Center's liaison with the UC's West Campus and has chaired and served on more than 50 university-wide committees. These include the steering committee for the Preparing Future Faculty Program, the search committee for the director of Institutional Research, the Institutional Management Technology Committee, and the Academic Technology Planning Committee.

Known also for her administrative skills, Dr. Degen has been trained on how to affect science policy at the regional and national levels at the Science and Society Institute sponsored by the Pew Scholars Program. 

In her role as associate senior vice president for health affairs, she led strategic planning for UC's "Planning for the Millennium" initiative. She has also been responsible for distribution of the Ohio Board of Regents Instructional Equipment Funds and chaired the MPH Task Force, which started the process for establishing a master's degree in public health at UC.

As associate chair for academic affairs in pediatrics, her many responsibilities include overseeing the reappointment, promotion and tenure process. While director of the graduate program in molecular and developmental biology, she ran the PhD program and was responsible for interacting with and mentoring all the students.