Board of Trustees

Vice-Chair

William E. Troutt, PhD, joined the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Board of Trustees in 2015.  Dr. Trout served as president of Rhodes College in Memphis, TN from 1999-2017. Prior to joining Rhodes, he served as President of Belmont University in Nashville from 1982-1999. During his tenure at Rhodes, Dr. Troutt established a strategic vision for the liberal arts college focusing on excellence both in the classroom and beyond the campus through student research, service, internship, and study-abroad opportunities. In 2001, Dr. Troutt and former St. Jude CEO Dr. William E. Evans established an academic partnership culminating in establishment of the St. Jude Summer Plus Fellowship and over 200 Rhodes students conducting intensive research with St Jude over the past two decades.  Dr. Troutt led the establishment of the Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes in 2012 focusing on the human experience and creating social change in Memphis and the Mid-South region. A nationally recognized leader in education, Dr. Troutt has chaired the American Council on Education, the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship program, and has served on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Commission, which made recommendations to Congress to dramatically increase the number of American undergraduates studying abroad. He has been named one of America's most effective college presidents, and in 2009 he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College.

James R. Downing, MD, joined the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Board of Trustees in 2022.  Dr. Downing is president and chief executive officer of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Downing earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan. He joined St. Jude in 1986 after training in anatomic pathology at Washington University in St. Louis and completing a fellowship in hematopathology at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Prior to taking the helm of St. Jude, Dr. Downing served as the institution’s scientific and deputy director. He became the hospital’s sixth chief executive officer on July 15, 2014. For his work, Dr. Downing has received many honors, including election to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Most recently, he was awarded the 2019 Pediatric Oncology Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pediatric Cancer Research.

James Downing Lab

Gabriel G. Haddad, MD

Gabriel G. Haddad, MD, joined the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Board of Trustees in 2018.  Dr. Haddad is the Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Neurosciences and the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Vice Dean of Children’s Academic Affairs at the University of California, San Diego and Physician-in-Chief and Chief Scientific Officer at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.  He earned his medical degree from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and completed a pediatric residency at the University of Texas Medical Center and a pediatric pulmonary fellowship at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He stayed on the faculty at Columbia University for 10 years before he was recruited to Yale University to be Professor of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Physiology and Division Chief of Respiratory Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital. He has been at the University of California, San Diego, and Rady Children’s since 2005.

Ryan Potts obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from UT Southwestern in 2007. In 2008 he was awarded the Sara and Frank McKnight junior faculty position at UT Southwestern Medical Center and appointed as Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physiology, Pharmacology, and Biochemistry in 2011. In 2016 his lab moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he was an Associate Member in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. In 2020, he moved to Amgen as Executive Director of Research and Head of the Induced Proximity Platform that is focused on empowering multi-specific, induced proximity therapeutic modalities through bold, creative science to expand the druggable genome and reimaging the future of drug discovery. In 2021, he took over leadership of Amgen’s Postdoctoral Fellows Program aimed at training the next generation of industry scientists. In recognition to his important contributions at Amgen, he was promoted to Vice President in 2023.

Sarah C. Larsen, PhD, joined the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Board of Trustees in 2023.  Dr. Larsen is the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School and a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Houston (UH).  Dr. Larsen earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Mathematics from Bowdoin College and her PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University. She was a Department of Energy Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Chemical Engineering and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.  She was on the faculty and in administrative roles at the University of Iowa for 23 years before moving to the University of Houston in 2018 where she oversees all graduate and professional programs. She has served as chair of the Association of Texas Graduate Schools (2021), as a member of the Graduate Education Committee for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2018-20) and she is currently a member of the Council of Graduate Schools Advancement Advisory Committee (2023-present).

Carolyn L. Smith, PhD, joined the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Board of Trustees in 2024.  Dr. Smith is a Professor of Molecular & Cellular Biology and holder of the William R Brinkley BRASS Chair at Baylor College of Medicine.  Dr. Smith earned her PhD from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada and completed her postdoctoral training in steroid receptor action at Baylor College of Medicine.  She joined the faculty following her fellowship leading the work of her NIH-funded laboratory focused on the molecular pharmacology of sex steroids.  Dr. Smith began her work in academic administration in 2005 culminating in her current roles as Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Vice-President of Education Affairs at Baylor College of Medicine.