The University of Utah School of Medicine appointed Dr. William Couldwell chairman of its department of neurosurgery.

Couldwell had been the neurological surgery department chairman and neurosurgical residency program director at New York Medical College since 1997. At the University of Southern California, he served as the director of both surgical epilepsy and the Center for Skull Base Surgery.

One of Couldwell’s areas of research is the treatment for recurrent malignant gliomas, one type of brain tumor. His other projects involve signal transduction, an area of research on how chemicals, such as a hormone or neurotransmitter, trigger a cellular function.

Couldwell is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the New York Academy of Sciences. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neurosurgery and the Neurosurgical Focus Journal Club.