By Christina Crowe
The UAB Department of Pathology is pleased to announce Shi Wei, M.D., Ph.D., returning to UAB as Director of the Division of Women’s Health effective February 1, 2024. Wei is the Barbara F. Atkinson Endowed Professor and Director of Translational Research, at the University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Photo credit: KUMC
Dr. Wei obtained his medical degree in China and received his Ph.D. in Japan. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by residency in anatomic and clinical pathology and a surgical pathology fellowship at UAB. He obtained additional clinical subspecialty training at Emory, Mt. Sinai and Harvard Universities.
Dr. Wei joined the faculty at UAB in 2009 as an assistant professor, and quickly rose to the rank of tenured professor in 2016. He served as Section Head of Surgical Pathology from 2015 and Associate Division Director of Anatomic Pathology from 2019. He was a Senior Scientist at UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Experimental Therapeutics Program.
In late 2021 Wei joined the faculty of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at KUMC as a Professor with Tenure and the Barbara F. Atkinson Endowed Professor, Director of Clinical Translational Research.
He returns to his training ground as director of the Division of Women’s Health, which has been helmed by Thomas Winokur, M.D., Interim Director and Professor, since its establishment in 2022.
“We are excited to have Dr. Wei rejoin UAB Pathology team, and so grateful to Dr. Winokur for his leadership in growing this division—the department’s newest—since its inception,” says Gene P. Siegal, M.D., Ph.D., Interim Chair, UAB Pathology.
Dr. Wei is actively engaged in the diagnostic surgical pathology service and has special clinical interests in breast and bone/soft tissue pathology. Over the course of his career, Dr. Wei has rapidly developed into a leading expert in his fields and become an internationally recognized successful academic physician. He has edited 3 textbooks, including Advances in Surgical Pathology: Breast Cancer, Atlas of Bone Pathology and Frozen Section Library: Bone, and contributed 8 monographs, recognizing his expertise in these areas. He has been actively involved in the national professional societies including USCAP, CAP, ASCP and ADASP. He is a member of multiple honor professional societies, including Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, International Skeletal Society (elected as an Executive Committee Member-at-Large, 2020-2022), and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society.
Dr. Wei is a staunch promoter of resident education. During his tenure at UAB, he received the Leonard H. Robinson Award for Excellence in Resident Education in Anatomic Pathology in both the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 academic years. Some of his residents received distinguished honors in translational research under his supervision, including the Tandra Chaudhuri Award for Excellence in Cancer Research and the John R. Durant Award for Excellence in Cancer Research at O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2020 Wei was named one of the year’s Honored Mentors by the USCAP Foundation.
Dr. Wei’s major research interests include discovery and evaluation of biomarkers in breast cancer and other malignancies, evaluation of prognostic factors in breast cancer and malignant bone tumors, and tumor bone metastasis. He has more 300 professional writings in these fields, including more than 180 manuscripts in some of the leading peer-reviewed journals such as JAMA, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Modern Pathology. Wei is the Editor-in-Chief of Human Pathology Reports and has provided his vast expertise to a number of editorial boards, covering diagnostic and experimental pathology, and related disciplines.