Carol R. Bradford, MD, MS, FACS

About

Dr. Bradford is an internationally recognized head and neck cancer surgeon-scientist and a transformative leader in academic health. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, she served as the first woman president of the American Head and Neck Society, and is past president of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Before joining the University of Minnesota as Interim Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Interim Dean of the Medical School, Dr. Bradford served as Dean of The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Vice President for Health Sciences at the OSU Wexner Medical Center. Prior to Ohio State, she spent her entire professional career at the University of Michigan Medical School/Michigan Medicine where she served in many roles, including Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs.

Dr. Bradford’s clinical and research career is marked by pioneering contributions to cancer treatment. She is widely credited with pioneering the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy as a safe tool for staging melanoma in the head and neck. Her research focuses on identifying biomarkers to predict patient outcomes and developing therapies for treatment-resistant cancers. She has authored more than 330 peer-reviewed articles and 20 book chapters, cementing her status as a global authority in her field.