Nashvillian of the Year Honoree
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2024 Honoree: James E. K. Hildreth
James E.K. Hildreth Sr., PhD, MD, was named chairman of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences board of trustees in 2019. As president and CEO of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee since 2015, he leads the nation’s largest private historically Black academic health sciences center. Hildreth holds an MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, a PhD from Oxford University, and a BA from Harvard University where he graduated as a Rhodes scholar. A world-class infectious disease expert, Hildreth’s ability to explain complex science to laypersons made him a national figure during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, he was appointed to the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and in 2021, he was named to President Joseph Biden’s Health Equity Task Force. Hildreth spent 23 years at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as student, postdoc, professor, and associate dean and served as dean of the College of Biological Sciences at University of California, Davis. His HIV research resulted in 11 patents and international recognition for several key discoveries. Hildreth was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous awards and recognition for his accomplishments, leadership, and service.
