The University of Nebraska System has named Dr. H. Dele Davies as the priority candidate for the position of chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Dr. Davies has served as UNMC’s interim chancellor since 2024. In this role, Dr. Davies has overseen campus leadership, program quality, and campus operations, which include six colleges, a graduate studies program, two degree-granting institutes, more than 6,000 professional faculty and staff, and 4,500 health professions students.
Dr. Davies was identified as the priority candidate after a search process open to candidates from across the NU system. The search was led by a committee comprised of representatives from UNMC, Nebraska Medicine, each of the other three NU campuses and members of the community. The search committee was convened by NU Executive Vice President and Provost David Jackson, Ph.D., and assisted by executive search firm CarterBaldwin.
Dr. Davies joined UNMC as vice chancellor and dean of graduate studies in 2012. He was promoted in 2017 to senior vice chancellor, with expanded responsibilities and direct oversight of all UNMC colleges and a health sciences library. During his tenure at Nebraska, Dr. Davies has overseen numerous initiatives and helped grow UNMC’s rural health programs, pathway programs, community outreach, and faculty and staff development. He has also been instrumental in the development of multiple new professional degree programs, which in turn have contributed to the steady enrollment growth UNMC has experienced over the past decade.
Prior to joining UNMC, Dr. Davies served as professor and chair of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Pediatrics and Human Development Department. Before that, he was director of the Child Health Research Unit at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, Canada, and the Child Health Research Institute at the University of Calgary.
Dr. Davies earned his medical degree from the University of Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a master’s degree in epidemiology from the University of Toronto Dana Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Davies also holds a master’s degree in health care management from the Harvard School of Public Health.
He is specialty-trained in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Dr. Davies is a past fellow of the Academic Leadership Program, an extensive training program of the Big Ten Academic Alliance designed to help faculty leaders address the challenges of academic administration at major research universities.
Dr. Davies would succeed Dr. Gold, who served as UNMC chancellor for a decade prior to being named NU President.