Claire Pomeroy, M.D., M.B.A.

An executive officer from a UC with a medical school
Appointed by UC Davis Chancellor

Claire Pomeroy, M.D, is Vice Chancellor for Human Health Sciences at UC Davis and Dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine, is an expert in infectious diseases and a professor of internal medicine and microbiology and immunology. She oversees the UC Davis Health System and all its academic, research and clinical programs, including the 800-member physician group known as UC Davis Medical Group and the 576-bed acute-care hospital known as UC Davis Medical Center. With an operating budget of nearly $800 million, patient visits of nearly 900,000, and more than $100 million in outside research funding, UC Davis Health System is a major contributor to the health care and economy of the Sacramento region.

Dr. Pomeroy joined UC Davis in 2003 as executive associate dean of the School of Medicine. In that role, she guided the development of a new strategic plan, enhanced the infrastructure for research and educational programs, and integrated the operations of the medical school and teaching hospital. Dr. Pomeroy leads an active research team studying host responses to infectious diseases. She has published over 100 articles and book chapters and edited two books. She currently serves on grant review study sections for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans
Affairs.

With special expertise in HIV/AIDS, she is a long-time advocate for patients with HIV/AIDS and has a special interest in health-care policy. She also has led efforts to advance electronic health records to improve health-care quality. Dr. Pomeroy is a member of the Board of Directors of the MIND Institute at UC Davis and of the CARES clinic in Sacramento.

She received bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Michigan, then completed her residency and fellowship training in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota. She also earned an MBA from the University of Kentucky.

Alternate Member

Ken Burtis, Ph.D.
Faculty Adviser to the Chancellor and Provost
University of California, Davis

Dr. Ken Burtis currently serves as the faculty advisor to the Chancellor and to the Provost of UC Davis, with primary responsibilities centered on coordination of the planning process for growth of the campus over the next decade, covering the areas of enrollment management, facilities planning and academic resources.

From 2005 to 2011, Dr. Burtis served a year as Interim Dean and then as Dean of the College of Biological Sciences at UC Davis, which includes over 5000 undergraduate students, 450 graduate students and 125 faculty. Named as the first dean of the newly established college in 2006, his involvement with biology at UC Davis spans almost four decades, during which time he has been a student, staff member, professor and administrator. He joined UC Davis as an undergraduate in 1972, earning his bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1976, and working until 1979 as a research associate. After earning a PhD in biochemistry and conducting postdoctoral research at Stanford University from 1979 to 1988, he returned to UC Davis as an assistant professor of genetics. Prior to his appointment as dean, Burtis served as chair of the Genetics Graduate Group, vice-chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, associate director of the UC Davis Genome Center, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs in the College of Biological Sciences.

Dr. Burtis has been long committed to the development of innovative approaches to teaching in the biological sciences, and to increasing the diversity of students pursuing careers in biomedical research. He leads the Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded programs for undergraduate education in biology at UC Davis, and teaches annually in the HHMI-sponsored National Academy of Sciences Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology.  He currently serves as the chair of the external advisory board of the HHMI NEXUS program, which is focused on development of new models for teaching interdisciplinary science, particularly to the large fraction of university biology students interested in pursuing careers in the health