Zachary Morris, MD, PhD was selected as the next Chairman of the Department of Human Oncology and began in the role in June 2024. Dr. Morris is a radiation oncologist at UW Health, cancer biologist within the Department and associate professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health. He stepped into the role following the 17-year Chairman appointment of Dr. Paul Harari.
Dr. Morris joined the University of Wisconsin- Madison faculty in 2016 after completing his Residency, also at UW-Madison. He was selected as vice chair of the department two years later and since has been an integral contributor to strategic planning for faculty recruitment, physician compensation planning, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, operational planning for the UW Health Eastpark Medical Center facility which opened in October 2024, and more.
We sat down with Dr. Morris several months into his new role to learn more about his transition and hear his plans for the future.
What has been the most surprising thing you’ve encountered since entering this role in June?
I didn’t realize how strong the network of collective chairpersons is between the clinical and basic science programs within UW SMPH. It’s been incredibly valuable to be included in and engaged with that group over the past 6 months. I’ve been integrated into a series of meetings with this group on both the health system side and with the SMPH Dean’s office. There are also more casual get-togethers in a social setting that have provided a great opportunity to gain perspective on similar challenges that confront department chairs. I’ve been able to learn from some of the more senior individuals in the group and to meet and share common experiences with those who are new in their role like I am.
This has provided a great opportunity for new collaboration and collegiality amongst other department chairs and also a chance for mentorship. It speaks to the kind of environment we have here at UW. There’s so much willingness to collaborate and mentor with one another. As a new chair I wasn’t sure where I would find the kind of a network I needed, and it’s been this group of departmental chairs that have delivered. They are very open and supportive, and it’s been a good place to ask questions about how things are done in other departments, and to compare and contrast approaches. This group has been an incredibly helpful to me in the Chairman role.
What are you most excited about in the next 1, 3, 5 years as Chairman of the Department of Human Oncology?
I stepped into this role amid enormous change and growth for our department and the one and three year trajectories are largely in motion; I’m excited to see those through.
In the next year I’m really excited to see us knock it out of the park as it relates to providing care at the main UW hospital clinic and the new Eastpark Medical Center. We are already doing that amazingly well, we had such a nice launch, thanks entirely to our faculty and staff who have navigated that. There are no doubt still going to be some challenges that emerge over the course of the next one year as we see the differences in the addition of another main campus location. We’re already providing outstanding care at Eastpark, but we are going to have the opportunity to innovate as we adapt to having two main campuses for providing patient care.
The three-year time frame puts us into the opening of proton therapy here in our department (second quarter of 2026). We have an outstanding team in place to ensure that we can launch that program in a way that we will all be proud of – on time with great efficiency and being able to deliver high quality patient care from the very beginning. A lot of those processes are well underway, and construction is moving along. However, there remains a large scope of work to be navigated and that’s got to take the focus of our three-year agenda. This is an enormous opportunity and something that I’m so happy that our department is going to be able to do. For many years I wished and felt that we should have proton therapy here because our patients deserved it, the state deserved it, and our health system and Cancer Center merited it. The focus of the next three years will be developing this world class proton center with industry-leading capabilities for treatment precision in our gantry room and with the additional innovative aspect of providing upright proton therapy in our second treatment room – something we will be among the first in the world to do. This is directly aligned with our clinical as well as our research and educational missions as a department so it’s a perfect three-year objective that I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Looking to the five-year plan, this is where I feel that we could take some time and look at ourselves as a department and say what can we be? What are the long term opportunities here? My hope is to see us as a department build on our strengths in research and innovation to bring forward the field of radiation medicine to be as impactful and as safe of a treatment as it can possibly be for patients with cancer or other diseases. Our department can grow its research mission to be a part of developing new approaches to proton beam or external beam radiation, personalization of radiotherapy and theranostics, and integration of drug therapies with radiation. We have strong research innovators and a core of discovery within our department and we have translational researchers who can take such discoveries and move them into clinical practice. My five-year vision for this department is guided by a belief that we can and will be increasing our role as an international leader in improving clinical care for patients on the back of innovative translational research.
Where do you look for inspiration or mentorship in your own career?
Inspiration is abundant in our field because what we do – the patient care, education, and research – is so meaningful. While I’ve had to reduce my clinical footprint since becoming Chairman, I’m glad to still be able to see patients because to me, the clinic and the encounters with patients is a never ending source of inspiration. We’re in a field I wish didn’t exist but we need to because cancer is such a difficult disease and our patients are navigating life altering circumstances. There’s been enormous progress in the field but the need for further progress is apparent in all aspects of cancer care including disease control, side effects, emotional trauma, and socioeconomic impacts on patients and their families. We must continue to ask, “what can we do to better serve the patients”? It all comes down to that – it’s the driving factor in what we do. It’s why we need to improve our clinical care through research and why we invest so much energy in educating the next generation of leading providers.
I’ve been very fortunate to have started my career here at UW, as many of us have, as faculty under the leadership and chairmanship of Paul Harari. Paul is a transformational leader and there’s no question that I’ve benefited enormously from his mentorship. I’ve also gained valuable mentorship from Paul Sondel after working in his lab, and Howard Bailey, former Director of the Carbone Cancer Center. Their insight and perspectives have been invaluable. I also believe strongly in peer mentorship and I learn constantly from other faculty across different domains of our department. I continue to seek out and benefit from those interactions with colleagues inside and outside of our department.
Do you currently recommend any books on leadership or for those within academic medicine?
I’ve received books from people I admire at different points in my career and two that stand out are At The Helm and Learning to Lead in the Academic Medical Center.
I received At The Helm from a mentor many years ago as I was launching my own independent lab. It is a book of advice on how to effectively and efficiently lead a laboratory. When I recently was named Chairman of the department, Dean Golden gave me a copy of Learning to Lead, which has been very insightful. I would recommend either of those to individuals on a similar career path as mine.
For a more general audience, consider Noise – an interesting read on how one can make better judgments and decisions from the information at hand.