Malcolm Cox is the Chief Academic Affiliations Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where he oversees the largest health professions training program in the country. Nearly 140,000 trainees in over 40 different health professions rotated through VA’s hospitals and clinics in 2010. In addition, Dr. Cox is responsible for maintaining and enhancing academic partnerships with more than 5000 of the nation’s health professions schools and universities.

Dr. Cox received his undergraduate education at the University of the Witwatersrand and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After completing postgraduate training in internal medicine and nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he rose through the ranks to serve as Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Chief of the Medical Service at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center; and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine, Associate Dean for Network & Primary Care Education and Associate Dean for Clinical Education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was one of the principal architects of the medical school’s new undergraduate curriculum.

In 2003, Dr. Cox was appointed Dean for Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, where he was instrumental in launching a comprehensive review of undergraduate medical education, joint degree programs with the Harvard Business School and Harvard College, and Harvard’s new integrated 3rd-year clinical clerkships. Upon leaving the Dean’s Office in January 2005, he was appointed the Carl W. Walter Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In February 2006, Dr. Cox returned to the Department of Veterans Affairs as the Chief Academic Affiliations Officer. Over the past five years, he has led a major expansion of VA’s health professions training programs and an intensive re-evaluation of VA’s educational infrastructure and affiliation relationships. At the same time, Dr. Cox has repositioned the Office of Academic Affiliations as a major voice in health professions workforce reform, educational innovation, leadership development and organizational transformation.

Dr. Cox currently serves on the National Leadership Board of the Veterans Health Administration, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.

Dr. Cox is a member of many professional and scientific societies and is the recipient of numerous honors and teaching awards at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School. He has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator of grants from the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Pharmaceutical Industry, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. Dr. Cox’s current scholarly interests include medical education and health policy.