Dr. Ravindra Uppaluri, Chief of Otolaryngology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School, has been appointed the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Otolaryngology at BWH.

A leader in his field, Dr. Uppaluri has dedicated his career to the pursuit of innovative approaches that advance outcomes for head and neck cancer patients. His surgical interests encompass minimally invasive approaches to head and neck cancers, including transoral access to reduce morbidity and novel surgical approaches of the anterior skull base.

His research focus has been on high fidelity preclinical modeling of head and neck cancers and directly studying patients afflicted with this disease. His laboratory work, which is funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), has leveraged genomic approaches, novel model systems, and leading-edge therapeutics to more clearly define oral squamous cell head and neck cancer dependencies. Through his work, he has also developed pre-clinical models that are now widely used in the field.

A graduate of Carleton College, Dr. Uppaluri received his medical degree and doctorate in genetics from the University of Minnesota before completing his surgical internship and residency in otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine/Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Following his training, he joined the Washington University School of Medicine faculty, where he served as Chief of Otolaryngology at the John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis before joining BWH.