New head of medicine department at Stony Brook

Stony Brook University has named Dr. Vincent W. Yang, a nationally recognized specialist in gastrointestinal cancers, to lead the school’s Department of Medicine.

Yang, currently director of the Division of Digestive Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, is to take his new post on Sept. 1.

“Dr. Yang is considered among his peers as the consummate physician-scientist,” Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, dean of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, said in a prepared statement.

Yang emigrated to the United States from his native Taiwan in 1976. He obtained a doctorate from Princeton University and a medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

At Stony Brook, Yang will be in charge of the largest department in the School of Medicine, which includes a residency training program and nine clinical divisions.