The AAMC has announced its 2025-26 Board of Directors. The incoming board’s term begins Nov. 5, 2025, and will end at the conclusion of Learn Serve Lead: The AAMC Annual Meeting in November 2026.
Michael Waldrum, MD, MSc, MBA, chief executive officer of ECU Health and dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University (ECU), has been elected to serve as chair of the AAMC Board of Directors. He will succeed Julie A. Freischlag, MD, chief academic officer and executive vice president of Advocate Health, chief academic officer of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, and executive vice president for health affairs of Wake Forest University, who will become immediate past chair. Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, FACS, dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, has been named chair-elect and will succeed Waldrum next year.
Waldrum was named CEO of ECU Health in June 2015 and appointed dean of the Brody School of Medicine in July 2021. He previously served as president and CEO of The University of Arizona Health Network. Prior to that role, he was CEO of the University of Alabama Hospital at Birmingham and vice president of the UAB Health System, and also served as chief operating officer and chief information officer of the UAB Health System. Waldrum received his medical degree from the UAB Heersink School of Medicine and completed his residency at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He received a master’s degree in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health and earned his MBA from the University of Michigan. Waldrum served as chair of the AAMC’s Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems from 2022 to 2024.
Ahuja became the 10th dean of the University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health and vice chancellor for medical affairs at UW–Madison in May 2025. She also serves as chair or vice chair in alternating terms on the board of the UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority. Prior to joining UW, Ahuja was the chair of the Department of Surgery at the Yale School of Medicine, the surgeon-in-chief for the Yale New Haven Health System, and associate cancer center director of Yale Cancer Center’s Surgical Services. Additionally, she serves on the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center Board. Ahuja obtained her medical degree at the Duke University School of Medicine and completed her residency training, a fellowship in surgical oncology, and master of business administration at The Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as chair of the AAMC’s Council of Faculty and Academic Societies.
In addition to the chair and chair-elect, the AAMC Board of Directors includes the AAMC president and CEO, immediate past chair, and chairs and chairs-elect from the association’s three member councils: Council of Deans, Council of Academic Health System Executives, and Council of Faculty and Academic Societies. The board also has nine at-large members, including a medical student, a resident physician, a junior faculty member, and two “public” members not affiliated with the AAMC, a medical school, or an academic health system.
The members of the 2025-26 AAMC Board of Directors are:
Chair:
Michael Waldrum, MD, MSc, MBA
ECU Health
Chair-elect:
Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA
University of Wisconsin
Immediate Past Chair:
Julie A. Freischlag, MD
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
President and CEO:
David J. Skorton, MD
AAMC
Robert A. Barish, MD, MBA
University of Illinois Chicago
Monica L. Baskin, PhD, MS
Virginia Commonwealth University
David N. Bernstein, MD, PhD, MBA, MEI
Massachusetts General Hospital
Ralph Boyd, JD
SOME (So Others Might Eat)
Allison Brashear, MD, MBA
University at Buffalo
Arthur R. Derse, MD, JD
Medical College of Wisconsin
Michael L. Good, MD
University of Utah
Edward Jimenez, MBA
Main Line Health
Charles P. Mouton, MD, MS, MBA
The University of Texas Medical Branch
Dennis Murphy, MHA
Indiana University Health
Rachel S. Nash, MD
Cooper University Health Care
Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, ScM
National Quality Forum
Johnothan Smileye, Jr., MD
Mass General Brigham
Marc M. Triola, MD
NYU
Gloria R. Xue, MS
Indiana University