Dr. Patricia E. Molina Named Senior Associate Dean for Research
Patricia E. Molina, MD, PhD has been named Senior Associate Dean for Research.
Dr. Molina joined the faculty in 1999 as Associate Professor before being promoted
to Professor with Tenure in 2004 and becoming the Department Head for Physiology and
the Director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center of Excellence (ADACE) in 2008.
As Senior Associate Dean, Dr. Molina will oversee the School of Medicine Research Office. She is charged with supporting the Dean of the School of Medicine in the efforts related to the reorganization of the basic science research enterprise. In addition, she will liaise with Basic Science Department Heads and Center Directors and the Dean’s office in the allocation of space in the newly renovated MEB research floors.
“I am excited to embrace this opportunity to be part of the restructuring of our basic science enterprise. I am committed to working with stakeholders in going through this growth process to accomplish the vision emerging from the recent strategic plan. Ultimately, our goal is to support researchers, provide state of the art facilities and infrastructure to enhance competitiveness of our research enterprise,” said Dr. Molina.
As Physiology department chair, Dr. Molina has made a tremendous impact: the department is known for excelling in research, teaching, and mentoring. She has received awards for outstanding teaching, mentorship, and commitment to the training of future scientists from diverse groups and been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally for her outstanding science, dedicated mentorship, and her service on national committees.
She has served as President of the American Physiological Society, the Research Society on Alcoholism, and as Chair of the National Hispanic Science Network. Dr. Molina is the PI of the NIAAA-funded T32 Biomedical Research Alcohol Training grant funded since 2009, and of the NIAAA-funded T35 Medical Student Alcohol Research Internship. In 2014, she succeeded Dr. Nelson’s leadership of the NIH funded Comprehensive Alcohol-HIV/AIDS Research Center and expanded its scope to span preclinical and clinical translational studies. She has mentored several junior faculty members at LSUHSC to succeed in obtaining NIH funding.
Dr. Molina received her MD at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala, and she received her PhD in Physiology at LSU School of Medicine at New Orleans. After completing her PhD, she did postdoctoral work at Vanderbilt before moving to Stony Brook as a Research Assistant Professor and Research Associate Professor. She was also appointed as a Guest Scientist at the Brookhaven National Lab before joining LSU School of Medicine.