HPHS 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award

Mary Kay Washington, MD, PhD is a professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Washington received her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1979-1982). She completed her medical degree at UNC (1983-1986). She completed her pathology residency at Duke University Medical Center from 1987-1991 and was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Duke from 1991-1995. She joined the VU faculty in 1996 and serves as director of Gastrointestinal and Hepatic Pathology.

Notable teaching and service awards include the President’s Honors Award, College of American Pathologists, 2010 and the Lifetime Achievement Award, College of American Pathologists, 2015.

She also serves as director for several research biorepositories and shared resources, including the Vanderbilt Digestive Diseases Research Center, the Vanderbilt SPORE in GI Cancer, and the Western Division of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network. She is on multiple committees and working groups for the National Cancer Institute (PathCHART project, co-chair of the Content workgroup), American Joint Committee on Cancer, United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (Council and Education committee) and the College of American Pathologists (Cancer committee).