Philip A. Pizzo MD

Philip A. Pizzo, MD is the David and Susan Heckerman Professor and Founding Director of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute. Pizzo served as Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine from April 2001 to December 1, 2012, where he was also the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor of Pediatrics and of Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Pizzo has devoted much of his distinguished medical career to the diagnosis, management, prevention, and treatment of childhood cancers and the infectious complications that occur in children whose immune systems are compromised by cancer and AIDS. He has also been a leader in academic medicine, championing programs and policies to improve the future of science, education, and healthcare in the US and beyond.

Pizzo received his MD degree with Honors and Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester in 1970 and completed an internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric oncology at the National Cancer Institute. Pizzo served as head of the Institute’s infectious disease section, chief of the NCI’s pediatric department, and acting scientific director for NCI’s Division of Clinical Sciences between 1973 and 1996. Before joining Stanford in 2001, he was the physician-in-chief of Children’s Hospital in Boston and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, where he was also the Thomas Morgan Rotch Professor of Pediatrics.