The UA has appointed an internationally known physician, scholar and researcher to be the new senior vice president for health sciences.

Dr. Joe G.N. Garcia, currently the vice president for health affairs at the University of Illinois, and an Earl M. Bane professor of medicine, pharmacology and bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will begin his new position and be an endowed UA professor of medicine, on Sept. 1.

“I think it’s fantastic that he accepted the position,” said George Humphrey, assistant vice president for public affairs at the Arizona Health Sciences Center. “We consider Dr. Garcia a triple threat player for academic medicine.”

In his new role at the UA, Garcia will overlook the Arizona Health Sciences Center colleges, which include the UA College of Medicine in Tucson, UA College of Medicine in Phoenix, UA College of Nursing, UA College of Pharmacy and the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

His position will require a medical professional who has also had financial and leadership experience in order to bring together all the health science colleges at the UA, said UA President Ann Weaver Hart.

Prior to working at the University of Illinois, Garcia served as director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago and vice chancellor of research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“He has tremendous impact at some of the finest institutions in the country and will bring that experience and quality to the University of Arizona Health Sciences,” Hart said, adding that she looks forward to Garcia’s leadership experience and depth of understanding in moving the UA Health Sciences forward.

“He will … bring to the University of Arizona a level of experience and expertise that will, we think, have a tremendous impact on the quality of our programs and research going forward,” she said.

With UA medical schools in Phoenix and Tucson, the expansion in research for health sciences at the UA is a major goal for the university.

“I know that one of the priorities at the university is to advance our health sciences enterprise because there’s a lot of potential,” Humphrey said. “You know, we have a College of Medicine in Phoenix with a lot potential for growth and I think that Dr. Garcia is the right person to bring us to the next level.”

Along with expansion in research, growth and supporting both colleges, Garcia said that increasing diversity in academic medicine is also important to him as a leader.

“I think training a very diverse biomedical workforce in healthcare is critical for us to be able to address many of the issues that confront the American healthcare community,” Garcia said.

His new position will require the long training and experience of a healthcare medical professional, according to Hart.

“It’s a tremendous portfolio of talent, intelligence and experience,” she said. “And there just aren’t many people who have that combination of characteristics.”