MSTP Leadership
Director
Associate Professor
Dr. Denise Marciano is the Carolyn R. Bacon Professor of Medical Science and Education and an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. An NIH-funded physician-scientist, she directs a research program dedicated to understanding the molecular mechanisms of kidney development, repair, and hereditary kidney diseases. Dr. Marciano received her PhD in Cellular Biophysics and her MD through the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program at Weill Cornell, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering. She completed her internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, where she also conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Louis Reichardt in Molecular Medicine. At UT Southwestern, Dr. Marciano previously served as Associate Director of the Internal Medicine Physician-Scientist Training Program. Nationally, she is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Physician Scientists Association. As Director of the Perot Family MSTP, she is deeply committed to fostering the next generation of physician-scientists.
Assistant Director
Associate Professor
Dr. James Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and a graduate of the MSTP at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at the University of Rochester, followed by Hematology/Oncology fellowship training at Johns Hopkins and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, before joining the UTSW faculty in 2011. Clinically, Dr. Kim specializes in lung cancer and head and neck cancers. His research program focuses on the role of developmental pathways in lung cancer and epithelial-stromal interactions that govern tumor initiation, progression, and therapeutic response.
Assistant Director
Associate Professor
Dr. David G. McFadden is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, with joint appointments in Radiation Oncology and Biochemistry. A native Texan, he earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at UT Southwestern. He completed internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by an Endocrinology Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. After postdoctoral research in cancer genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. McFadden returned to UT Southwestern in 2015. His clinical practice focuses on patients with thyroid cancer, particularly those with clinically challenging or advanced disease. His laboratory uses genetic and chemical screening approaches to identify dependencies in fusion driven sarcomas and thyroid cancer. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2023. Dr. McFadden also serves as the inaugural Jean D. Wilson Firm Leader, with a strong commitment to mentoring trainees toward excellence in research and postgraduate training.
MSTP Colleges Mentor
Associate Professor
Dr. Bret Evers is an alumnus of the UT Southwestern MSTP and is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Ophthalmology. His doctoral thesis was performed in the laboratory of Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein and involved understanding the role of cholesterol homeostasis in craniofacial and hair follicle development. He completed his Anatomic Pathology residency and Neuropathology fellowship at UT Southwestern. Aside from his clinical duties in neuropathology and ophthalmic pathology, Dr. Evers is also the Director of Autopsy at UT Southwestern and Parkland Hospital. Scientifically, Dr. Evers is the Director of the Histo Pathology Core and collaborates with numerous researchers on and off campus to analyze histopathologic changes in animal models. In addition to his clinical and research endeavors, Dr. Evers teaches extensively in the pre-clerkship curriculum and within the Graduate School. He joined the MSTP leadership team in 2021 and is now the Colleges Mentor for MSTP students.
Director Emeritus
Professor
Andrew R. Zinn, M.D., Ph.D., is an alumnus of the UT Southwestern MSTP. He did residency training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in human genetics at the Whitehead Institute before returning to UTSW in 1993. Dr. Zinn maintained an NIH-funded laboratory for nearly 25 years studying the genetic basis of human sex chromosome abnormalities and Mendelian diseases. He served as director of the UTSW MSTP between 2008 and 2025, and as Dean of the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences since 2013.
Director Emeritus
Professor
Michael S. Brown, M.D., Professor of Molecular Genetics, received his M.D. from The University of Pennsylvania and trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology before embarking on research on the molecular mechanism of cholesterol homeostasis, for which he and Joseph Goldstein shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Brown was a founding director of the UTSW MSTP and continues to provide scientific and career guidance to trainees.
