John P. Leonard, MD, the Richard T. Silver Distinguished Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology, has been appointed senior associate dean for innovation and initiatives at Weill Cornell Medicine. In his new role, Dr. Leonard will lead efforts to foster entrepreneurship and innovation and to promote commercialization opportunities for inventions made by its scientists. He will oversee the creation and expansion of a robust innovation ecosystem that will accelerate the transfer of technologies to industry partners and the healthcare marketplace. Dr. Leonard, who is also the executive vice chair of the Weill Department of Medicine, will additionally work to develop new business, funding, and philanthropic opportunities to advance strategic initiatives in research, patient care, and education for the institution. He will continue to maintain his active clinical practice and research program in lymphoma as well.

A graduate of the UVA School of Medicine’s Class of 1990, Dr. Leonard has been at Weill Cornell Medicine since his training as a resident, chief resident, and hematology-oncology fellow. An internationally recognized authority on hematological malignancies, he has pioneered the development of novel therapeutics in lymphoma and chairs the Lymphoma Committee for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (a part of the National Clinical Trials Network of the National Cancer Institute). He has been elected to the American Board of Internal Medicine subspecialty board for hematology and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has served as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board and board member of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, which honored him with its Distinguished Service Award in 2018. He has also been a board mmber of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society/New York City Chapter. In 2017, he received the Miriam G. Wallach Award for Excellence in Humanistic Medical Care from NewYork-Presbyterian.