Director of the CRI
Sean J. Morrison is the director of the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute (CRI) at UT Southwestern and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He holds the Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics and the Kathryne and Gene Bishop Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Research. Dr. Morrison completed a B.Sc. in biology and chemistry at Dalhousie University (1991), a Ph.D. in immunology at Stanford University (1996), and a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology at Caltech (1999). From 1999 to 2011, Dr. Morrison was a professor at the University of Michigan, where he directed its Center for Stem Cell Biology. His laboratory studies the mechanisms that regulate stem cell function in adult tissues and the ways in which those mechanisms get hijacked by cancer cells to enable tumor formation.
Among other awards, Dr. Morrison received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003) and a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging (2009). He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (2018) and the National Academy of Sciences (2020). Dr. Morrison served as the President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (2015–2016) and has been active in public policy issues surrounding stem cell research, testifying before the U.S. Congress, and serving as a leader in the successful “Proposal 2” campaign to protect and regulate stem cell research in Michigan’s state constitution.
Board of Directors
Christopher J. Durovich
President and Chief Executive Officer, Children’s Health
Robert A. Chereck
Retired Executive Chairman, Southwest Securities, FSB
Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D.
President, UTSW Medical Center
Steve Gruber
Partner, Blumenthal & Gruber, LLP
Stephen Skapek, M.D.
Interim Chair, Pediatrics, UTSW Medical Center
David W. Biegler
Retired Chairman, Southcross Energy Partners
Michael Serber
Vice President of Finance, UTSW Medical Center
Joan Conaway, Ph.D.
Vice Provost and Dean of Basic Research, UTSW Medical Center
Sean Morrison, Ph.D.
Director, Children’s Research Institute
W. P. Andrew Lee, M.D.
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost, and Dean, UT Southwestern Medical School
Scientific Advisory Boards
Internal
Michael Brown, M.D.
Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine, UTSW Medical Center; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1985
Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Molecular Biology UTSW Medical Center; Member, National Academy of Sciences
Julio Perez-Fontan, M.D.
Physician-in-Chief, Children’s Medical Center; Robert L. Moore Chair, Pediatrics, UTSW Medical Center
Helen H. Hobbs, M.D.
Chief, Division of Medical Genetics UTSW Medical Center; Member, National Academy of Sciences
David Russell, Ph.D.
Vice Provost and Dean of Basic Research UTSW Medical Center; Member, National Academy of Sciences
W. P. Andrew Lee, M.D.
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost, and Dean, UT Southwestern Medical School
External
Stuart H. Orkin, M.D.
Chair, Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Member, National Academy of Sciences
Charles L. Sawyers, M.D.
Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Member, National Academy of Sciences
Gail Mandel, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist, Vollum Institute at Oregon Health and Science University; Member, National Academy of Sciences
Owen N. Witte, M.D.
Director, Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research; Member, National Academy of Sciences
Lewis C. Cantley, Ph.D.
Meyer Director and Professor of Cancer Biology, Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine
Jonathan A. Epstein, M.D.
William Wikoff Smith Professor of Cardiovascular Research, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Administration
Teresa Hui, M.B.A., M.S.
Executive Director
Katie Regan, M.A.
Science Communications
Misti Wheat, B.S.
Project Manager
Ashlei Johnson, B.S.
Financial Analyst Supervisor
Laura Clarke
Procurement and Faculty Support
