Dr. Carol R. Bradford is an internationally recognized surgeon-scientist and a transformative leader in academic medicine. In February 2026, she joined the University of Minnesota as the Interim Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Interim Dean of the Medical School. In this dual leadership capacity, she oversees the University’s expansive healthcare enterprise, steering the academic, research, and clinical missions of the Medical School and the Health Sciences to advance health for all Minnesotans.
Before joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Bradford served for five years as the Dean of The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Vice President for Health Sciences at the OSU Wexner Medical Center. Under her leadership, Ohio State achieved record-breaking extramural research funding of $477 million and secured national recognition as a top-tier medical school for research excellence. She was instrumental in launching the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Center and creating innovative learning tracks to address physician shortages in rural communities.
An expert in head and neck oncology, Dr. Bradford’s clinical and research career is marked by pioneering contributions to cancer treatment. She is widely credited with pioneering the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy as a safe tool for staging melanoma in the head and neck. Her research focuses on identifying biomarkers to predict patient outcomes and developing therapies for treatment-resistant cancers. She has authored more than 330 peer-reviewed articles and 20 book chapters, cementing her status as a global authority in her field.
