Dr. Geoff Pickering re-appointed Heart & Stroke Chair

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Geoffrey Pickering has been re-appointed as the Barnett-Ivey Heart & Stroke Chair in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, effective January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020.

Dr. Pickering earned his MD in 1983, at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and received fellowship certification in Internal Medicine and Cardiology in 1987, and 1989, respectively, from the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. He earned a PhD, in Medical Biophysics at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, Western University in 1990. He subsequently undertook post-doctoral training in vascular biology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts and assumed a faculty position at that institution.

Dr. Pickering leads an internationally recognized vascular biology research program. The overarching focus of his research team involves the identification of pathways by which muscle cells contribute to vascular disease. Dr. Pickering's laboratory is one of few worldwide that has successfully cloned muscle cells from human arteries. He is internationally recognized for his work on vascular smooth muscle cell biology.

Dr. Pickering is a Cardiologist at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC)and a Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Medical Biophysics at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry. He is also the Co-Director of the Molecular Medicine Group at the Robarts Research Institute. He is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, and a member of the Echocardiography Service at LHSC. He was the Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research from 2008-2011. Dr. Pickering is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, as well as Past-President of the Canadian Society of Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

Dr. Pickering is the recipient of a number of awards and honours, including a Career Investigator Award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario (1998-2010), a Dean’s Award of Excellence for Research (2004), the Tony Graham Award for Excellence in Board Service, Heart and Stroke Foundation (2014) and the WORLDiscoveries Vanguard Award (2015).

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Pickering on his re-appointment.

Dr. Michael Strong, Dean
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry