In recognition of outstanding achievement, Sally Hodder, M.D., has been honored with the inaugural Chancellor’s Preeminent Scholar Chair by West Virginia University Health Sciences Chancellor and Executive Dean Clay Marsh, M.D.
Dr. Hodder, director of the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute, associate vice president for clinical and translational science at WVU Health Sciences and professor of medicine in the School of Medicine, is an infectious disease expert who is committed to improving health outcomes for West Virginians.
“Dr. Hodder’s expertise, research and leadership are vitally important to our mission as a land-grant institution,” Dr. Marsh said. “Her work throughout the state addressing major health concerns – such as COVID-19, HIV and the opioid epidemic – has made a tremendous positive impact on our communities and our future.”
The newly created Chancellor’s Preeminent Scholar Chair will be presented to full or associate professors who demonstrate unusual preeminence and accomplishment within their field and at the University. Special attention is given to a candidate’s outstanding academic service, national and international recognition, successful publishing, exemplary research, clinical achievements, ongoing community engagement and existing principal investigator funding.
Hodder joined WVU in 2014 and has embraced its land-grant mission to serve the state and its people, developing critical connections among researchers, clinicians, health professionals and communities across West Virginia.
Her funded initiatives include support from the National Institutes of Health, with recent projects focusing on long-term effects of COVID-19 in adults, a mobile clinical trials unit serving rural populations, SARS-CoV-2 activity forecasting in West Virginia, COVID-19 testing initiatives and specialized care education for primary healthcare providers in rural areas of the United States, addressing hepatitis C, HIV, substance use disorder, chronic lung disease, cardiac health and memory health, among others.
For nearly four decades, Hodder has been deeply involved in the area of infectious diseases and is no stranger to emerging epidemics. She earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and completed postgraduate training at the University of California San Francisco at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic. In the mid-1980s, she was conducting research in Kenya as HIV emerged in Africa. Hodder later served as vice president of virology medical affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb during the development of the first single pill treatment for HIV infection. Before coming to WVU, she served as director of HIV programs at Rutgers University and built an integrated HIV care and research program in Newark, New Jersey, successfully competing for NIH-supported trials and serving as protocol chair for the NIH-supported HIV Prevention Trials Network 064 multi-site study of HIV incidence and risk behaviors among 2,099 U.S. women. She held an appointment on the National Institutes of Health’s National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council from 2015-2019.
A private celebration will be held to honor Hodder as the recipient of the Chancellor’s Preeminent Scholar Chair.
-WVU-
jw/08/23/22
CONTACT: Jessica Wilmoth
Senior Communications Specialist
WVU Health Sciences
304-293-9528; jessica.wilmoth@hsc.wvu.edu
