The new position aims to boost efforts towards innovative professional development
Renée Shellhaas, MD, will join Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in October as associate dean for faculty promotions and professional development. Shellhaas, whose research focus is neonatal neurology, will also join the Department of Neurology as a professor.
Renée Shellhaas, MD, has been named associate dean for faculty promotions and professional development at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She comes to school from the University of Michigan, where she is an associate chief for professional development and a pediatric neurologist. She begins her new role in October.
Shellhaas will also be installed as the David T. Blasingame Professor and will join the department of neurology as a professor.
In this position, Shellhaas will work with the leadership team of the School of Medicine to develop innovative institutional programming aimed at improving the professional development of faculty, including the promotion and tenure process and other ways to support faculty. In addition, she will explore new ways to bring leadership, management, and coaching training programs to departments, institutes, and school divisions.
“Dr. Shellhaas was selected from a national search for highly talented candidates and received the unanimous endorsement of the Executive Faculty to elevate us to national leadership in innovative strategies to advance a full and diverse spectrum of teaching careers,” said David H. Perlmutter, MD , Chancellor Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, Dean George and Carol Bauer, and Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor “This is an area of ​​extraordinary importance to our school as we aspire to be a home to more and more appealing to researchers, clinicians, educators, and entrepreneurs seeking a career-life balance that fills them with deep purpose and inspiration Renée’s background as a physician, educator, and researcher provides the breadth of experience to draw on as We pursue these goals.”
Shellhaas’s research focus is neonatal neurology and early life epilepsy, including approaches to seizure detection, improved treatment paradigms, and prediction of long-term outcomes for affected infants. She is also a leader in studies of sleep and sleep-disordered breathing and its impact on neurodevelopment in high-risk newborns, for which she received the American Academy of Neurology Sleep Science Award.
She has published extensively and is Principal Investigator for two active R01 fellowships from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is associate editor of the journal Neurology and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Child Neurology, Pediatric Neurology, and the Annals of the Child Neurology Society. Earlier this summer, she was named president-elect of the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation.
In addition to her many leadership roles at the University of Michigan and in multiple professional organizations, Shellhaas has been elected to the American Society of Pediatrics and the Society for Pediatric Research, and a Fellow of the American Epilepsy Society. Additionally, she has a strong mentoring and teaching background; she received the inaugural Endowed Chair Award for Outstanding Mentoring from the University of Michigan Department of Pediatrics.
Shellhaas is a graduate of Middlebury College and the University of Michigan Medical School. She trained in pediatrics, neurology/child neurology, and clinical neurophysiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the Michigan faculty in 2007 and was promoted to professor in 2019 and professional development leadership in 2020. She also completed a master’s degree in clinical research design and statistical analysis at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 2009.