Meet the Chief

Mark Okusa is the John C. Buchanan Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the UVA School of Medicine. After completing a residency in internal medicine at the Medical College of Virginia (now the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine) and a fellowship in nephrology at the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Okusa was recruited to UVA as a faculty member and clinical investigator in 1991. He has served as chief of the Division of Nephrology since 2008 and as director of the Center for Immunity, Inflammation and Regenerative Medicine since 2007. Dr. Okusa’s research focuses on the role of inflammation and immune cells in initiating and maintaining acute kidney injury. Supported by continuous funding from the NIH over his career, his findings in preclinical studies serve as a foundation for clinical trials in both acute kidney injury and progressive kidney disease. He has and continues to serve on a number of national and international panels to help set the research agenda in acute kidney injury as well as to help develop clinical practice guidelines in acute kidney injury. He is currently principal investigator on several NIH grants, including a T32 training grant in “Kidney Disease and Inflammation.”

Dr. Okusa has published over 160 papers and served as an associate editor or on the editorial board for several journals, including Nephron Physiology, Kidney International and the American Journal of Nephrology. In 2012, he was elected to a seven-year term as councilor of the American Society of Nephrology, which included serving a one-year term as president in 2018.

In his free time, Dr. Okusa enjoys staying physically fit (running, cycling, yoga), playing classical guitar, and spending time with family and friends.