Dr. Paul Rothman recently retired after 10 years as the Dean of the Medical Faculty for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Chief Executive Officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, a $10 billion academic medical enterprise and a health system with a global reach. As Dean/CEO, Dr. Rothman oversaw both the Johns Hopkins Health System and the School of Medicine. A rheumatologist and molecular immunologist, he came to Hopkins in July 2012 after having served as Dean of the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. Previously, he served as Head of Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa, and prior to that as Vice Chairman for Research and Founding Director of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he joined the faculty in 1990.
A 1980 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rothman received his Medical degree from Yale University in 1984, earning a place in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He then trained at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in internal medicine and rheumatology and accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University prior to joining its medical school faculty.
Rothman's research focused on immune system molecules known as cytokines. Specifically, he investigated the role these molecules play in the normal development of blood cells, as well as the abnormal development of these blood cell that leads to leukemia. He also studied the role of cytokines in immune system responses to asthma and allergies. His work was consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health.
His honors include a Pew Scholar Award, a Leukemia Society of America Scholar Award and the Pharmacia Allergy Research Foundation International Award in 1997. Dr. Rothman is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and served as President in 2014. He also served as President of the Society of Medical Administrators from 2019 until 2020.
Dr. Rothman serves on several boards, including the boards of Merck and Co., where he chairs the Research Committee, Labcorp, USC Health System, and the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Saudi Arabia