UW School of Medicine and Public Health
4129 Health Sciences Learning Center
750 Highland Avenue
Madison, WI 53705-2221
Executive assistant
Andrea Fabian
608-263-4910
afabian@wisc.edu
Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, is the dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and UW–Madison’s vice chancellor for medical affairs. She also serves as rotating chair or vice chair of the board of the UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority and is a professor in the Department of Surgery. A renowned surgeon-scientist, she has held top roles at some of the nation’s leading research universities and health systems.
Ahuja is a cancer-care innovator whose treatment approaches and research have garnered international recognition. She is an expert in the treatment of sarcomas and complex gastrointestinal cancers, and her innovative surgical and heated chemotherapy approaches have drawn patients from around the world seeking treatment for difficult metastatic cancers.
A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary approaches to medicine and translating discoveries into treatments, Ahuja has a long history of leading collaborative and cutting-edge research aimed at improving cancer outcomes. Her research laboratory identifies and develops biomarkers to allow early detection of pancreatic and colorectal cancers using patients’ genetic information. She has published more than 300 scholarly articles and book chapters to advance both the surgical and basic science fields.
In May 2025 Ahuja became the tenth dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. She is the first woman to serve in this role.
Prior to joining the school, she was the chair of the Department of Surgery at the Yale School of Medicine for seven years. She also served as the surgeon-in-chief for the Yale New Haven Health System. A skilled and respected leader, Ahuja greatly advanced the mission of Yale’s Department of Surgery. Under her leadership, research funding tripled to more than $17 million, improving its Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research ranking from 47 to 16. As a champion of a positive organizational culture, she instituted multiple initiatives aimed at increasing collaboration, celebrating the successes of faculty, staff and learners, and fostering an inclusive environment. Prior to her time at Yale, Ahuja was a faculty member and leader in the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University.
Ahuja is a board member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the representative body serving all accredited U.S. and Canadian medical schools and teaching hospitals, and chair of the AAMC’s Council of Faculty and Academic Societies. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She is also a member of several of the nation’s most prestigious academic societies, including the American Surgical Association, Society of Surgical Oncology, and Society of University Surgeons. Among other accolades, she has earned the William J. Reinhoff, Jr. Scholar Award, the American Surgical Association Fellowship and the Society of Surgical Oncology Clinical Investigator Award.
Ahuja earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland in biology and mathematics and received her medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine. She completed a general surgery residency and surgical oncology fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Ahuja also holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.