During the annual Business Meeting on Tuesday, the ACR will install the 82nd president of the American College of Rheumatology, Paula Marchetta, MD, MBA, during the meeting. Current secretary, Ellen Gravallese, MD, will become ACR president-elect, and the ACR membership will confirm Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc, as secretary of the ACR and the Rheumatology Research Foundation. In addition, V. Michael Holers, MD, Kent Kwas Huston, MD, Carol A. Langford, MD, MHS, and Kelly Weselman, MD, will be inducted as the newest members of the ACR Board of Directors.
The Business Meeting starts at 1:30 pm in Room W184a.
Paula Marchetta, MD, MBA
Dr. Marchetta is a rheumatologist in New York City and the CEO and Managing Partner of Concorde Medical Group PLLC, a multispecialty private group practice affiliated with NYU Langone Health. She is also Clinical Professor at NYU School of Medicine.
Dr. Marchetta began her volunteer work with the ACR in 2009 on the Committee on Finance, followed by a three-year term on the ACR Board of Directors. She then served as treasurer for the ACR and the Rheumatology Research Foundation from 2015-2017 and as president-elect of the ACR in 2018. She will serve as the 82nd President in the coming year.
She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Fordham University with a degree in English and stayed on to complete her Master’s in English before earning her MD from NYU School of Medicine, where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at NYU-Bellevue Hospital, followed by a fellowship in rheumatology at the combined NYU-Bellevue/Hospital for Joint Diseases program. She served as both chief resident and chief fellow during her training.
Following fellowship, she was in solo private practice for eight years before joining Concorde Medical Group, where she was elected to the Executive Committee in 2002 and named CEO & Managing Partner in 2008. Her greater management role led her to pursue an MBA from The George Washington University School of Business in 2009. In 2010, she completed Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program in Managing Health Care Delivery.
As a member of the NYU faculty, Dr. Marchetta teaches and supervises fellows on the rheumatology inpatient consult service. She has received several Teacher Recognition Awards from NYU School of Medicine, including a Service Citation for 25 years of Medical Education. She also maintains an active clinical practice as part of Concorde and has been recognized as a Top Doctor by Castle Connolly and New York magazine.
Ellen M. Gravallese, MD
Ellen M. Gravallese, MD, is a tenured professor of medicine and holds the Myles J. McDonough Chair in Rheumatology at University of Massachusetts Medical School. She serves as Chief of the Division of Rheumatology and Director of Translational Research for the Musculoskeletal Center of Excellence.
Dr. Gravallese’s laboratory studies fundamental mechanisms of inflammation and joint destruction in inflammatory arthritis. Through pathologic and molecular techniques, murine models of disease, and clinical investigation, her research has provided an understanding of key pathways by which inflammation impacts bone in the rheumatic diseases. This work has contributed to the change in focus in RA therapy, with greater focus on disease modification. Her laboratory identified osteoclasts as the cell type responsible for bone destruction in RA and demonstrated that RANKL is a critical cytokine produced by RA synovial tissues that drives osteoclastogenesis. Work in her laboratory has also described the production in RA synovium of inhibitors of osteoblast function that prevent “healing” of bone. These inhibitors are being explored as novel therapeutic targets to promote bone formation. Her current studies focus on innate immune pathways in inflammation and bone remodeling in rheumatic disease, including the STING and AIM2 cytosolic DNA sensing pathways.
Dr. Gravallese has served on numerous boards and committees, including the Board of Scientific Directors at NIH (NIDCR), the Board of Directors of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), the Board of Directors of the Rheumatology Research Foundation of the ACR and as chair of the ACR Journal Publications Committee.
She is a member of the ACR Executive Committee and will serve as ACR President in 2019-2020. Dr. Gravallese is the recipient of the Sandoz Award for medical research, the McDuffie Award and the Marion Ropes Award from the Arthritis Foundation, the Scholars in Medicine Award from Harvard Medical School and the Steven Krane Award from the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (2017). She lectures nationally and internationally and currently also serves as an associate editor for the New England Journal of Medicine.
Charles King II, MD
Charles King II, MD, was born in Honolulu, HI, and attended William Jewell College in Liberty, MO, initially declaring his intention to study music (playing the tuba). He earned a bachelor’s in chemistry with honors in biology and was recognized as an Academic All-American in track and field.
After attending medical school at the University of Kansas, he completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine-Tulsa. He was recognized as the Outstanding Senior Resident and was awarded the Asclepian Award for excellence in teaching. His fellowship in Arthritis and Connective Tissue Diseases was completed at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH.
Dr. King is the senior member of the Rheumatology and Osteoporosis Center of Excellence at the North Mississippi Health System in Tupelo, MS, where he has practiced for 21 years. In addition to a robust clinical practice he is actively engaged in medical research and served as his institution’s IRB Chair from 2010-2016. Dr. King has authored several publications, including the ACR’s rheumatoid arthritis and gout treatment guidelines. He is the founding member of the Mississippi Arthritis and Rheumatism Society (MSARS) and served as its president for six years.
He has served the ACR on a number of committees and councils including the Government Affairs Committee, Registries and Health Information Technology Committee, Affiliate Society Council, and was both a member and chair of the Committee on Rheumatologic Care. He has completed his first year of a two-year term as treasurer of the ACR and the Rheumatology Research Foundation and will serve his second year as ACR treasurer from 2018–2019.
Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc
Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc, is the Jane Knight Lowe Professor of Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Birmingham, AL, and professor of epidemiology, at the UAB School of Public Health.
Following studies in engineering at the University of Michigan, he attended Northwestern University for medical school, internal medicine residency, and chief residency. His rheumatology and epidemiology training took place at the University of Iowa, where he remained on the faculty until moving to UAB in 1998.
Dr. Saag is the vice-chair for the UAB Department of Medicine. He is the principal investigator of AHRQ-funded T32 in Health Services, Outcomes, and Effectiveness Research, the AHRQ-funded K12 in Patient Centered Outcomes Research, and the NIH funded TL1 and KL2 connected to the UAB Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS). He completed two 5-year funding cycles of a K24 Mid-Career Award in Patient Oriented Research. He received the ACR 2013 Excellence in Investigative Mentoring Award.
He also is the director of the NIAMS UAB CORT in Gout and Hyperuricemia, the founding director of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Deep South Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics, the UAB Center of Research Translation in Gout and Hyperuricemia, and the UAB Outcomes Research Center. He recently published the second edition of the Diagnosis and Management of Osteoporosis.
Dr. Saag is on the ACR Committee on Finance, co-developer of the 2008 and 2011 ACR recommendations on the treatment of RA, and served as a board member. He’s the immediate past president of the National Osteoporosis Foundation, the first rheumatologist to hold this position.
ACR Board of Directors 2018-2019
Officers
President
Paula Marchetta, MD, MBA
New York, NY
President-Elect
Ellen M. Gravallese, MD
Worcester, MA
Secretary
Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc
Birmingham, AL
Treasurer
Charles King II, MD
Tupelo, MS
Rheumatology Research Foundation President
Abby Abelson, MD
Cleveland, OH
ARHP President
Hazel Breland, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, CLA
Charleston, SC
Members
Dan Battafarano, DO
San Antonio, TX
Jody Hargrove, MD
Edina, MN
William Harvey, MD
Boston, MA
V. Michael Holers, MD
Aurora, CO
Evelyn Hsieh, MD, PhD
New Haven, CT
Kent Kwas Huston, MD
Kansas City, MO
Marissa Klein-Gitelman, MD, MPH
Chicago, IL
Carol A. Langford, MD, MHS
Cleveland, OH
Elizabeth Perkins, MD
Hoover, AL
William Robinson, MD, PhD
Stanford, CA
George Tsokos, MD
Boston, MA
Kelly Weselman, MD
Atlanta, GA
Doug White, MD, PhD
Onalaska, WI
David Daikh, MD, PhD
San Francisco, CA
ACR Immediate Past President (Ex-Officio)
S. Lou Bridges, MD
Birmingham, AL Rheumatology Research Foundation Vice-President (Ex-Officio)