Joseph Y. Cheung has been appointed chair of the Department of Medicine in Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM). Prior to that appointment, he had served as senior associate dean for research at TUSM since April 2012.

“As chair of the Department of Medicine, Joe brings to the job significant leadership experience combined with institutional knowledge that will serve him well in continuing to shape the strategic growth of the department,” said Larry R. Kaiser, dean of Temple University School of Medicine; president and CEO of Temple University Health System; and senior executive vice president for health sciences at Temple University.

In addition to shaping the strategic growth in the Department of Medicine, Cheung will continue his current clinical work in Temple University Hospital’s Nephrology Division and maintain the research progress being made in his NIH-funded basic-science laboratory.

Cheung earned his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1976 and his MD from Duke University in 1978. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Duke and a nephrology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Cheung remained on the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital before returning to Penn State Hershey in 1986, where he became chief of the Division of Nephrology in 1993. In 2006, Cheung was named chief of nephrology at Jefferson Medical College. He joined Temple in February 2012.