Ralph Weichselbaum, M.D. (Harold H. Hines, Jr. Chair) received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1967, and his medical degree from the School of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1971. Following a research fellowship in surgical oncology, he completed his residency at the Harvard Medical School's Joint Center for Radiation Therapy in 1975. He then joined the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, remaining a faculty member until 1984 and reaching the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. In 1984 he was recruited as Chair of the Department of Radiation & Cellular Oncology in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Weichselbaum's broad research interests range from innovative multidisciplinary clinical programs in head and neck cancer treatments, to laboratory studies of DNA recombination and repair signal transduction, gene-targeted radiotherapy, ionizing radiation and angiogenic therapy, and chemoprevention. He has received many professional awards, honors and recognition for his scientific and medical accomplishments, including the Harold H. Hines Jr. Chair he now holds at the University of Chicago; appointment as one of the only three radiation oncologists at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; honorary membership in the Swiss Society of Radiology; and the John B. Little Award from Harvard School of Public Health.