Texas A&M University today announced the appointment of Roderic I. Pettigrew as the inaugural dean of the Intercollegiate School of Engineering Medicine. The new school expands efforts at Texas A&M University to train a new type of physician engineer, the “physicianeer,” who will be both a practicing physician and a trained engineer. The intercollegiate school is expected to be the largest engineering-based medical degree program in the nation and the only program that allows graduates to receive both a doctorate of medicine and master’s degree in engineering in four years.
Dr. Pettigrew is the Robert A. Welch Professor in the Texas A&M University College of Medicine and professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering. He previously served as CEO for engineering health for Texas A&M’s Health Science Center and College of Engineering and as executive dean for the Engineering Medicine (EnMed) collaboration between Texas A&M and Houston Methodist Hospital.
Dr. Pettigrew is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He is a recipient of the 2020 Vannevar Bush Award bestowed by the U.S. President’s National Science Board, which “honors truly exceptional lifelong leaders in science and technology who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the nation;” the 2019 National Academy of Engineering’s Arthur M. Bueche Award for national and international leadership in science and technology and determining U.S. policy; and the inaugural Gold Medal of the Academy of Radiology Research.
Professor Pettigrew is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he majored in physics. He holds a master’s degree in nuclear science and engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and a Ph.D. in applied radiation physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his medical degree at the University of Miami.
