The University of Florida Board of Trustees on Monday unanimously appointed Dr. Donald W. Landry, a longtime Columbia University physician-scientist and academic leader, as interim president of the university.
His appointment takes effect Sept. 1 and requires confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors, which is scheduled to consider the matter at its Sept. 10-11 meeting. Landry is chair emeritus of Columbia’s Department of Medicine and currently holds the Hamilton Southworth Professorship at New York Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center, where he also directs the Center for Human Longevity.
“Dr. Landry is a highly accomplished scientist whose work is recognized around the world,” said Mori Hosseini, chair of the UF Board of Trustees. “He has shown exceptional leadership in academia and beyond, building programs with innovation, energy and integrity. I am confident that Dr. Landry will bring those same talents to the University of Florida in service to the students, faculty and people of the great state of Florida.”
Landy is additionally the president of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, has published more than 150 academic articles, holds 50 U.S. patents and in 2008 received the Presidential Citizens Medal.
At Columbia, Landry previously served as physician-in-chief and founded the Division of Experimental Therapeutics. His research has included work on enzyme-based therapies for cocaine addiction and overdose, drug development targeting neurological, cardiac and oncologic diseases and identification of vasopressin deficiency in shock states.
Landry holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard University, earned in 1979 under Nobel laureate R.B. Woodward, and an M.D. from Columbia University, completed in 1983. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and trained as a National Institutes of Health physician-scientist fellow at Columbia from 1985 to 1990.
