Richard P. Lifton, MD, PhD

Richard P. Lifton was named The Rockefeller University’s 11th president by its Board of Trustees on May 5, 2016, following an international search. He took office on September 1, 2016.

A physician-scientist who holds MD and PhD degrees from Stanford University, Dr. Lifton has pioneered the use of genetics and genomics to understand fundamental mechanisms underlying human diseases, including cardiovascular disease, neoplasia, kidney disease, and osteoporosis. He is especially known for research on hypertension and salt intake, work that has informed public health efforts and therapeutic strategies used worldwide.

Dr. Lifton is a graduate of Dartmouth College. He did his medical residency at Brigham and Women’s College, and has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and Yale University. He joined Yale in 1993 as assistant professor of internal medicine and genetics, and became chair of Yale’s Department of Genetics in 1998, a position he held until he assumed presidency of Rockefeller. While at Yale, Dr. Lifton also served as executive director of the Yale Center for Genome Analysis, which he founded in 2009.

Dr. Lifton is a 2014 Breakthrough Prize winner, a 2008 recipient of the Wiley Prize for Biomedical Sciences, and has received numerous other scientific and medical honors, including awards from the American Heart Association, the American Society of Nephrology, and the American Society of Hypertension. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1994 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He was the co-chair of the planning committee for President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative in 2015.