Gozal Named Chair of Child Health

David Gozal, MD, MBA, has been named chair of the Department of Child Health, effective Aug. 1, 2018. Gozal will be joining the University of Missouri School of Medicine from the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences, where he serves as the Herbert T. Abelson Professor of Pediatrics.

Gozal is a leading world expert in the field of sleep medicine. He is known as a pioneer in the study of childhood sleep problems and the relationships between sleep disorders and neurobehavioral, cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

His research has been funded by multiple National Institutes of Health grants and focuses on translational approaches to pediatric sleep disorders, such as childhood obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and sudden infant death syndrome. An accomplished author and speaker, he has published more than 600 peer-reviewed articles, more than 150 book chapters and reviews, edited three books and has extensively lectured at scientific meetings around the world.

Gozal received his medical degree from Hadassah Medical School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also completed an internship. He completed residencies at Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem, Haifa Medical Center in Israel and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where he also completed fellowship training. He earned Masters of Business Administration from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C as well as from ESADE in Spain.

Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, MSc, has been named vice chair of research for the Department of Child Health, effective Aug. 1, 2018. Kheirandish-Gozal currently serves as the director of pediatric clinical sleep research at the University of Chicago.

Her research revolves around pediatric sleep disorders of breathing, with particular focus on major areas of vascular and cognitive morbidity associated with pediatric OSA as well as exploration of novel non-surgical therapies for pediatric OSA.

Kheirandish-Gozal’s research has identified causative links between pediatric sleep disordered breathing and its morbid neural and cardiovascular consequences. She has published more than 175 peer-reviewed articles, and is regularly an invited speaker at national and international scientific meetings.

She received her medical degree from the University of Damascus. She has conducted post-doctoral research, completed a clinical fellowship and earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

"Please join me in welcoming Dr. Gozal and Dr. Kheirandish-Gozal, and in thanking Dr. Bert Bachrach for his service as interim chair of the department since January," said Patrick Delafontaine, MD, the Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean of the MU School of Medicine.