Dr. Craig Brater came to IUPUI in 1986. He served as the Dean and Walter J. Daly Professor in the Indiana University School of Medicine and Vice President for University Clinical Affairs, for 13 years, retiring in 2013. He received Indiana University’s highest award, the University Medal. At that time, President Michael MacRobbie paid tribute to Dean Brater’s contributions to IUPUI and the community that bear witness to the reasons he was awarded the Bepko Community Medallion. The president’s remarks can be read in detail but the major points made at the award ceremony are listed here.
Click here to access the IU president’s web site to read about Dean Craig Brater.
The Visionary Leadership of Craig Brater
- one of the most senior and well-respected medical deans in the country
- has overseen an era of remarkable progress in the School of Medicine.
- The school has increased the number of students it serves, even as the number of highly qualified applicants has steadily climbed.
- The number of faculty in the school has doubled.
- The school has attracted many millions of dollars in grants and awards.
- The school has made major contributions to global public health and a transformation of Indiana’s life sciences economy.
Research Excellence
- External funding for research has more than doubled, from around $130 million in the first year of his tenure to $272 million in 2012, half from the National Institutes of Health.
- The school’s investment, with IU Health, of $150 million over five years in the Strategic Research Initiative to enhance the institutions’ joint capabilities in fundamental scientific investigation, translational research, and clinical trials for innovative treatments for disease.
Expansion of Facilities
- The school’s addition, with IU Health, of more than a million square feet of new facilities for research, education, and patient care including:
- multipurpose facilities on the Fort Wayne and South Bend campuses,
- the Health Information and Translational Sciences Building opened in 2007,
- the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center dedicated in 2008,
- Fairbanks Hall opened in 2008,
- Joseph Walther Hall, the school’s, largest research building, dedicated in 2009,
- the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Eye Institute dedicated in 2011,
- the Neuroscience Research Building connected to the IU Health Neuroscience Center.
Success in Securing Philanthropic Support
- 53 endowed chairs,
- 36 endowed professorships,
- 157 student scholarship funds,
- more than 300 new funds in support of research endeavors or other programs were established.
- Awards and Honors
- awarded memberships in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and mastership in the American College of Physicians.
- received
- the PhRMA Foundation Award in Excellence in Clinical Pharmacology,
- the American College of Clinical Pharmacology’s Distinguished Investigator Award,
- the Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics,
- the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Duke University School of Medicine, his alma mater,
- the Indiana Public Health Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service in Years of Health Advancement, and
- an honorary degree from Purdue University.
- He was inducted into the Royal College of Physicians of Thailand, a rare honor for a non-Thai citizen, as they induct only one non-Thai citizen each year.