USM Board of Regents Appoints Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, as President of University of Maryland, Baltimore
Experienced Administrator and Transplant Surgeon has Held Leadership Roles at UMB Since 1997
Baltimore, MD. (Sept. 10, 2020) – The University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents has appointed Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, as the next president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Jarrell has served as UMB interim president since Jan. 6, 2020. His tenure as president is effective September 11.
Jarrell has been affiliated with UMB since 1997, when he was appointed chair of the Department of Surgery in the School of Medicine. In April 2012, he was appointed UMB’s chief academic and research officer and senior vice president, responsible for oversight of all academic matters at the university. In that role, he worked to promote the university’s education, research, and clinical care agendas, and oversaw many of UMB’s most prominent institutional relationships, such as the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State— UMB’s structured collaboration with the University of Maryland, College Park—as well as academic collaborations with other USM institutions.
Jarrell’s already wide-ranging duties were further expanded in 2017, when he was named executive vice president and provost. After the board appointment in November 2019 of then-UMB President Jay A. Perman as next USM chancellor, the System announced that Jarrell would succeed Perman at UMB in the interim president role when Perman began his service as chancellor on Jan. 6, 2020.
“The Board of Regents is extremely pleased that Dr. Jarrell has accepted the appointment to be president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore,” Board of Regents chair Linda R. Gooden said. “He has already served the university so well in leading its academic and research offices, and his effective stewardship as interim president was seamless during an important and transitional time for the USM. Dr. Jarrell has been a critical part of the System’s planning and response to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, and we are delighted that he will remain in this key leadership role at UMB.”
“The core of my professional life is centered here at UMB,” Jarrell said. “I have been so proud to guide the university during these challenging months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with UMB on the forefront of medical and societal advances. As I wrote recently to the UMB community, our university will not be an island within a city, but an integral part of the community that houses our institution. I am privileged to continue that vision for UMB.”
“Bruce Jarrell is the ideal leader for UMB,” Chancellor Perman said. “When you’re fortunate to head a university, you understand that it’s the people around you who advance the institution toward excellence. Dr. Jarrell was certainly one of those people for me when I was president of UMB. No one was wiser in their counsel or more inspired in finding ways to better deliver on the university’s critical missions. What’s more, Bruce will be the kind of leader who brings out the best in the people who now surround him. His deep capability and dynamic vision are exactly what an institution as important as UMB needs and deserves.”
Jarrell was born and raised in Caroline County, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He received a BChE degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and an MD degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He completed a general surgical residency and renal transplantation fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia and has held faculty positions at Jefferson and the University of Arizona, where he was professor and chair of surgery just before coming home to Maryland in 1997.
After Jarrell’s arrival as the Department of Surgery chair in UMB’s School of Medicine, the department expanded its surgical programs and developed innovative research studies and clinical trials, leading to its ranking as 11th nationally in total research funding from the National Institutes of Health. In 2003, Jarrell moved to the Dean’s Office of the School of Medicine, where he served as the executive vice dean, directing the school’s education and research enterprises. Jarrell also served as the Institutional Official for Human Research Protection and Animal Research Protection. He has remained actively involved in research and medical student education throughout his career.
Jarrell has written several books, including multiple editions of the popular textbook NMS Surgery and the NMS Surgery Casebook. He is also an accomplished metalsmith and member of the Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland.
UMB is the state’s public health, law, and human services university devoted to professional, graduate, and undergraduate education, research, patient care, and public service. The university serves as an anchor institution for the west side of the City of Baltimore.
UMB enrolls more than 6,800 students in six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary Graduate School. The University offers 76 doctoral, master’s, baccalaureate, and certificate programs, and confers most of the professional practice doctoral degrees awarded in Maryland.
UMB is a thriving academic health center combining cutting-edge biomedical research and exceptional patient care. UMB’s extramural funding totaled $664.7 million in FY 2019, and each tenured/tenure-track faculty member brings $1.4 million in research grants, on average, into UMB every year.
UMB’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, with three dozen tenants and more than 1,000 employees. The research park fuels the commercialization of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.
To learn more about the University of Maryland, Baltimore, visit www.umaryland.edu.
The USM comprises 12 institutions: Bowie State University; Coppin State University; Frostburg State University; Salisbury University; Towson University; the University of Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and the University of Maryland Global Campus. The USM also includes three regional centers—the Universities at Shady Grove, the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, and the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland—at which USM universities offer upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses.
Systemwide, student enrollment exceeds 172,000. The USM and its institutions compete successfully nearly $1.5 billion in external grants and contracts annually. USM institutions and programs are among the nation's best in quality and value according to several national rankings. To learn more about the University System of Maryland, visit www.usmd.edu.
Contact: Mike Lurie
Phone: 301.445.2719
Email: mlurie@usmd.edu
