Dennis Valenzeno has been named director of the Alaska WWAMI Biomedical Program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) and assistant dean at the UW School of Medicine. In this position he will direct the education program for medical students at UAA. He will also be the associate dean for medical and premedical programs at UAA.

Valenzeno is currently a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine (KUMC) in Kansas City, Kan. He received his Ph.D. in 1976 from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

At KUMC, Valenzeno has been involved in medical curriculum revision. He crafted the organ system-based block schedule used in the first year. Since 1996, he has served as course director for Medical Physiology, a course which was voted Outstanding First Year Course three times in the past six years.

Valenzeno’s research interests include medical education and photobiology, the effect of light on living tissues. He is receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Education to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a Web-based learning tool in photobiology, the Digital Photobiology Compendium. Past efforts include the development of Photobiology Online, which includes the Web homes of the three largest photobiology societies, as well as several smaller societies.

He has been senior associate editor of the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology, and treasurer and councilor of the American Society for Photobiology.

Valenzeno begins work at UAA in May and succeeds former director Michael Dimino, as well as interim director Ray Bailey, professor of anatomy at UAA. Bailey previously served as director of the Alaska WWAMI program at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.