Board Member: Eugene Washington

A. Eugene Washington, M.D., M.Sc.

An excutive officer from a UC with a Medical School
Appointed by the Chancellor of UCLA

Dr. Washington is vice chancellor of health sciences and dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In his role as vice chancellor, he oversees the school of medicine and the UCLA Health System which includes four hospitals and the medical practices, and he serves as the principal spokesperson for health sciences on campus and to external constituencies. He is also a Distinguished professor of Gynecology and Health Policy at UCLA and holds the Gerald S. Levey, M.D. Endowed Chair.

Dr. Washington served as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2004 to 2010. He co-founded UCSF’s Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations in 1993 and served as the director from its establishment through July 2005. He was Chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences from 1996 to 2004. He also co-founded the UCSF-Stanford Evidence-based Practice Center and served as its first director from 1997 to 2002. Before joining the faculty at UCSF, Dr. Washington worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

A respected clinical investigator and health policy scholar, Dr. Washington has been a national leader in assessing medical technologies, developing clinical practice guidelines and establishing disease prevention policies, particularly for women’s health. He has published extensively in his major areas of research, which include prenatal genetic testing, cervical cancer screening and prevention, noncancerous uterine conditions management, reproductive tract infections, quality of health care, and racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. And he has been actively engaged in the training of medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty.

Dr. Washington was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in 1997. He also received the Outstanding Service Medal from the U.S. Public Health Service and has been recognized by peers and staff. In 1999, he was named the UCSF School of Medicine Alumnus of the Year, the highest honor awarded by the Alumni-Faculty Association, in 2002 he received UCSF’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award, in recognition of extraordinary effort to promote diversity on the campus, and in 2006 he was inducted into the Gold-Headed Cane Society.

During the past 30 years, Dr. Washington has served on a number of professional and government boards and committees. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Board of Directors of The California Wellness Foundation. He also serves on the governing Council of the IOM and as a member of the congressionally-mandated Scientific Management Review Board for the National Institutes of Health.

A 1976 graduate of the UCSF School of Medicine, Dr. Washington completed graduate studies at both UC Berkeley and Harvard schools of public health and residency training at Stanford University.

Alternate Member
Judith C. Gasson, PhD
Professor of Medicine and Biological Chemistry
Director, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
President, Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation
Senior Associate Dean for Research
David Geffen School of Medicine

Judith Gasson, Ph.D., became the director of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) on Sept. 15, 1995. She is a molecular biologist and is responsible for one of only 41 institutions designated as comprehensive cancer centers by the National Cancer Institute.

Gasson earned her doctorate degree in physiology at the University of Colorado in 1979. She did her postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA, studying glucocorticoid hormones, which are made by the adrenal gland in response to stress. In 1983, she left the Salk Institute to join UCLA. She is currently Professor of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology) and Biological Chemistry.

Gasson was instrumental in purifying for the first time a hormone-like substance that increases the speed of bone marrow cell reproduction. That substance, called GM-CSF, is used to help prevent infections in cancer patients and to allow those patients to tolerate more chemotherapy and radiation than had previously been possible.

For the past seventeen years, Dr. Gasson has been the director of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC), among the nation’s top 10, according to U.S. News & World Report. Under her leadership, the JCCC has become a recognized international pioneer in “translating” laboratory discoveries into more effective new therapies for cancer patients everywhere. She has also served as the President of the Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation.

On September 17, 2012 she was appointed Senior Associate Dean for Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine.