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New board members elected for 2023

Published on: Friday, February 3, 2023

Members of the national organ donation and transplantation community have elected 19 people to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Board of Directors, including the following officer positions: President, Vice President/President-Elect, Treasurer, Immediate Past President, and Minority Transplant Professional Representative. Seventy-three percent of voting members* returned a ballot, which sets a new record for election participation.

All board members are volunteers and serve terms ranging from one to three years, depending on the office to which they are elected. Their terms of service begin July 1, 2023.

Board officers

Dianne LaPointe Rudow, ANP-BC, DNP, FAAN, currently the Vice President/President-Elect, will assume the presidency. She is Director of the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. She will serve from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.

Richard Formica, M.D., will be the Vice President/President-Elect. He is Director of Transplant Medicine and the Medical Director of Adult Kidney Transplantation at Yale New Haven Hospital. He will serve from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.

Andrea Tietjen, M.B.A., CPA, will become the Treasurer. She is Assistant Vice President for Transplant Administration at St. Barnabas Medical Center. She will serve from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025.

Jerry McCauley, M.D., M.P.H., will be the Immediate Past President. He is the Medical Director of Transplantation Services and Director of Nephrology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He will serve from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.

Silas Norman, M.D., M.P.H., will become the Minority Transplant Professional Representative. He is a Co-Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation and the Director of the Transplant Multi-Specialty Clinics at the University of Michigan Medical Center. He will serve from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025.

Other newly elected members are as follows:

Region 1 Councillor—Reginald Gohh, M.D., Rhode Island Hospital. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 2 Councillor—Emily Blumberg, M.D., Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 4 Councillor—Michael Kwan, M.D., Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 7 Councillor—Bhargav Mistry, M.D., FRCSEng, FRCSI, FACS, Sanford Medical Center Fargo. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 8 Councillor—Andrew Kao, M.D., FACC, FHFSA, St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 10 Councillor— Kenneth McCurry, M.D., The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. (Term ends in June 2025)

Region 11 Councillor—Christopher Jones, M.D., FACS, Jewish Hospital. (Term ends in June 2025)

At-Large Patient and Donor Affairs Representatives (Terms end in June 2026):

  • George Surratt
  • Julie Spear, P.E.
  • Jennifer Lau
  • Laura Butler, M.M.H.C., FNP-BC

Medical/Scientific Organization Representative (ASHI)—Luis Hidalgo, Ph.D., F(ACHI), Histocompatibility Laboratory, University of Wisconsin. (Term ends in June 2025)

Medical/Scientific Organization Representative (NATCO)—Erika Demars, RN, M.S.N., CCTC, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. (Term ends in June 2025)

Medical/Scientific Organization Representative (AOPO)—Colleen McCarthy, RN, B.S.N., Versiti Wisconsin. (Term ends in June 2025)

*Note: Each OPTN member institution with voting privileges may cast one vote. The organization designates one person to serve as a voting representative on its behalf, as well as an alternate if the primary representative is unavailable. People who are individual OPTN members are also voting representatives.


For additional information about the Board volunteer and election process, visit the Get Involved page.