Richard Mayeux, MD, MSc, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Epidemiology at Columbia University, has been named chair of the Department of Neurology and neurologist-in-chief at Columbia University Medical Center. The appointment, which became effective March 1, 2011, was announced jointly by Lee Goldman, executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences and dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Columbia University, and Herbert Pardes, president and CEO of New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Timothy Pedley, MD, an internationally recognized authority on epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology and founder of Columbia's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, stepped down when he became president-elect of the American Academy of Neurology. In addition to his work at the academy, Pedley will continue to have administrative responsibilities in the department and play an increased role in the Epilepsy Center. Pedley is past president of the American Neurological Association, the American Epilepsy Society, and the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine.
Mayeux, director of the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center for Neuroepidemiology and Genetics and codirector of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, is an internationally recognized authority on Alzheimer disease and other dementias, and his work has resulted in more than 300 articles, chapters, and books dealing with various aspects of Alzheimer disease and other degenerative diseases of the aging brain. His many honors and awards include the 2007 Potamkin Award of the American Academy of Neurology, the Leadership and Excellence in Alzheimer's Disease Award from the National Institute on Aging, the John Stearns Award for Lifetime Achievement in Medicine from the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer's Disease Research from the Alzheimer's Association. Mayeux has been elected to the Association of American Physicians, the American Epidemiological Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.