Executive Vice Chancellor Robert D. Simari, M.D.
Dr. Simari serves as executive vice chancellor for KU Medical Center, which is comprised of the schools of Health Professions, Medicine and Nursing, as well as a robust research enterprise.
Robert D. Simari, M.D., the Franklin E. Murphy Professor in Cardiology, assumed the role of executive vice chancellor for the University of Kansas Medical Center in January 2018. A 1986 alumnus of KU School of Medicine, Simari also served as executive dean for the KU School of Medicine from March 2014 through August 2019, providing oversight and leadership to the school's three campuses in Kansas City, Wichita and Salina.
As executive vice chancellor, Simari oversees the education, research, patient care and outreach missions of the schools of Health Professions, Medicine and Nursing, which have a total annual enrollment of more than 3,500 students. He is responsible for a workforce of more than 1,700 faculty and more than 3,500 staff; a significant research enterprise with funding of nearly $100 million; and actvities in every county in the state of Kansas.
Prior to joining KU, Simari served as vice chair for the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and co-principal investigator of the Center for Translational Science Activities at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he also served as a physician scientist, cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Simari's laboratory made fundamental discoveries in the areas of thrombosis and identification of vascular stem cells, and he led the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute-funded Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network from 2008 to 2021.
Simari earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and his medical degree from the University of Kansas. He completed his internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and fellowships in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. Following his clinical training, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Elizabeth Nabel at the University of Michigan.
In 2018, he was appointed to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for M.D.-granting medical education programs in the United States and Canada; he served as vice chair in 2020-21 and as chair in 2021-22. Simari is a member and has served as the president of the Association of University Cardiologists. He also holds memberships in the American Clinical and Climatological Association, the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Society of Medical Administrators. He is the author of A Prescription to Lead: How Medical Training Prepares America's Physician Leaders.