Community, Institutional News, Vitals Magazine Fall 2025

Building a Healthy
Future Together

A note from leadership.

Published: 
2 min read
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As we welcome a new chapter in leadership, we are filled with gratitude for the uniquely collaborative and porous academic medical ecosystem that spans our institutions. Across Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, you can find faculty, researchers, clinicians, and learners revolutionizing healthcare and medicine together. In doing so, they are transcending departments, disciplines, and institutions to develop the most comprehensive and potent solutions to the biggest challenges to health.

This is the power of our partnership. Because we work so fluidly across departmental and institutional boundaries, we’re accelerating progress: Whether it’s developing cutting-edge AI tools to support patient care and diagnostics; advancing real-time genomic analysis to transform how we detect cancer; or confronting antimicrobial resistance with a coordinated, cross-campus response, our community is not only imagining the future of health, they’re also building it, right here and right now.

We are both energized by the momentum already underway and excited to build upon our established work across our academic medical institutions. Already, we are expanding bridges across the entire Dartmouth ecosystem to unite interdisciplinary problem-solvers to devise innovative treatments for some of the most deadly and complex diseases. Together, we are poised to amplify our shared mission: to educate, to discover, and to deliver the best possible care to every person and every community we serve.

The future of health is not a distant aspiration. It’s happening here. And we couldn’t be more proud to be in it with you.

Joanne M. Conroy, MD
CEO and President,
Dartmouth Health

Steven D. Leach, MD
Dean (Interim),
Geisel School of Medicine

Steven D. Leach

Geisel Interim Dean

Steven D. Leach, MD, began his term as interim dean of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth on September 15. A nationally recognized leader in cancer research and academic medicine, Leach served as director of Dartmouth Cancer Center from 2017 until he began his role as dean. In that position, he expanded clinical services, advanced research initiatives, and deepened community engagement. As dean, he brings a deep commitment to excellence and collaboration across Dartmouth and Dartmouth Health. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Leach has a long track record of leading seminal breakthroughs in pancreatic cancer surgery, biology, genomics, and therapies. His discoveries underpin our understanding of the mechanisms driving the development of pancreatic cancer and have led to the development of cutting-edge treatments. Prior to joining Dartmouth Cancer Center, Leach held the David M. Rubenstein Chair and was the inaugural director of the Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Leach earned his AB in biology at Princeton University and his medical degree from Emory University. He completed his residency in general surgery and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Yale University, followed by a surgical oncology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

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