After a national search, Mark Dransfield, M.D., has been appointed chair of the UAB Department of Medicine, effective Sept. 1, 2025. Dransfield has served as interim chair of the department since Sept. 1, 2024. He is a professor of Medicine and has served as director of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine since 2021. He also holds the Ben Vaughan Branscomb Chair of Medicine in Respiratory Disease.

"I am honored and humbled to serve as the next chair of the UAB Department of Medicine," Dransfield said. "The department has a long legacy of clinical and educational excellence as well as innovative and high-impact research, and is well-positioned for even greater success. I am committed to advancing all of our missions and making the department a destination of choice for the brightest, most creative, and most team-oriented faculty, staff, and trainees."

Since becoming interim chair, Dransfield has worked with the department’s leadership team to accomplish numerous goals, including naming division directors for General Internal Medicine and Population Science, Infectious Diseases, and Nephrology. In addition, the team completed a reorganization of the chair’s office structure and communication strategy in response to an outside consulting review and UAB Medicine feedback, conducted a formal task force review of salary expectation and incentive plan policy for research intensive faculty, expanded the clinical footprint at UAB Medical West and launched GI services at UAB St. Vincent’s, implemented four new division compensation plans, launched a new Faculty Development Program, and helped lobby for expanded parental leave with the support of school and university leadership.

A nationally recognized leader in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Dransfield served as medical director of the UAB Lung Health Center from 2009 to 2023 and led the CMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative for COPD from 2015 to 2019. He also served as medical director of Pulmonary Rehabilitation for more than a decade.

Dransfield is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has served as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials and observational studies funded by the NIH, Department of Defense, and American Lung Association. He currently chairs the Lancet Commission on COPD, an international consortium working to chart a path toward eradicating the disease, and serves on the board of directors and chairs the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee of the COPD Foundation.

Dransfield has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, including high-impact papers in The New England Journal of Medicine. He serves as editor-in-chief of COPD: Journal of the COPD Foundation and on the editorial board of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He has mentored numerous postgraduate trainees who have gone on to successful faculty positions at institutions across the country.

A graduate of the UNC School of Medicine, Dransfield completed his residency and fellowship training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at UAB, where he served as chief fellow. He joined the UAB faculty in 2003 and was promoted to full professor in 2016.

“I congratulate Dr. Dransfield on his appointment and am confident his deep commitment to scientific discovery, clinical excellence, mentorship, and academic leadership will guide the Department of Medicine into an exciting new chapter of growth and impact,” said Anupam Agarwal, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the Heersink School of Medicine.