Christopher Calabrese, PhD

Education

BS - University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
PhD - University of Bradford, United Kingdom

Chris Calabrese, PhD, serves as senior vice president and deputy director for the Scientific Director’s Office, where he helps drive the future of discovery at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In this role, Dr. Calabrese ensures St. Jude scientists have the tools, resources and support to push boundaries in exploration and innovation. He oversees much of the infrastructure supporting fundamental research, including several of our institutional shared resources, and manages the expansive range of varied projects and challenges that come through the Scientific Director’s Office in our pursuit of knowledge.

Dr. Calabrese joined St. Jude in 2001 as a postdoctoral research associate in Developmental Neurobiology. He became a staff scientist in 2005 and, a year later, was promoted to director of the new Small Animal Imaging Core, a position he held until 2014. He then continued his growth in leadership by joining the Office of the Scientific Director, initially as administrative director and rising to vice president of laboratory research operations in 2020.

During the past 10 years, Dr. Calabrese has played a leading role in the construction of more than $450 million of new research infrastructure, towards facilitating the expansion of our research enterprise as dictated in our strategic plan. This included the new Inspiration 4 Advanced Research Center which is home to the departments of Developmental Neurobiology, Cell and Molecular Biology, Structural Biology and the Center for Pediatric Neurological Disease Research and the Shared Resource Center, a $13.4 million facility that consolidates institutional support cores with related themes and technologies into a single location.