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Dear UVA Health colleagues,

Please join me in welcoming Tracy M. Downs, MD, FACS, as our inaugural Chief Diversity & Community Engagement Officer. Tracy is a leader of integrity who is passionate about the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as community health advocacy. After a national search, Tracy was our search committee’s top choice, and we are thrilled he is joining our team.

Tracy comes to UVA Health from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health where he is Associate Dean for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs and Professor of Urologic Oncology. He also is a board-certified urologist specializing in the surgical treatment of urologic cancers, with a sub-specialty focus in the treatment of both prostate and bladder cancer. At UW, Tracy played an instrumental role in overseeing the recruitment of and medical education support programs for individuals from ethnically diverse backgrounds underrepresented in medicine. He also served as Faculty Director of the Cancer Health Disparities Initiative at UW’s Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Tracy earned his MD from the University of California San Diego, completed his residency in urology at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, and completed a fellowship in urologic oncology at the University of California at San Francisco.

In this new role, Tracy will serve as UVA Health’s leading voice on diversity, equity and inclusion and be a powerful advocate for related initiatives across the health system and, more broadly, in the local community. Within UVA Health, he will support, consolidate, and guide efforts to ensure an inclusive, optimal and respectful learning, training and working environment. Within the greater Charlottesville region, he will work collaboratively to improve community health and well-being by addressing social determinants of health to decrease health disparities amongst those who are at risk or currently under-served.

Tracy will assume this new role on July 1 and will report directly to me. He will also work collaboratively with Kevin McDonald, UVA’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Community Partnerships.

Tracy, we welcome you to UVA Health!

In partnership,

K. Craig Kent, MD
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, University of Virginia
Chief Executive Officer, UVA Health