The Department of Pathology is thrilled to announce four faculty’s new appointments to endowed positions. Oyedele Adeyi, M.D., FRCPC, has been named the second holder of the C. Bruce Alexander Endowed Professorship in Pathology. Selvarangan Ponnazhagan, Ph.D., has been named the second holder of the Jay M. McDonald, M.D., Endowed Chair in Laboratory Medicine. Lalita Shevde-Samant, Ph.D., has been named the second holder of the Endowed Professorship in Experimental Cancer Therapeutics. Thomas Winokur, M.D., has been named the second holder of the Robert W. Mowry, M.D., Endowed Professorship in Pathology.
Oyedele Adeyi, M.D., FRCPC
C. Bruce Alexander Endowed Professor in Pathology
Adeyi recently began serving as section head of Gastrointestinal Pathology and director of the GI fellowship program. Adeyi joined the department as director of the Division of Anatomic Pathology on June 6, 2025, from the University of Minnesota Medical School where he served as professor since 2019 and as director of surgical pathology. Prior to his appointment at Minnesota, Adeyi joined the University of Toronto in Canada as an assistant professor in 2006 and was promoted to associate professor in 2014.
In 1987, Adeyi earned his medical degree from the University of Ibadan’s College of Medicine in Ibadan, Nigeria, before completing both a medical internship and residency in pathology at Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria in 1996. In 2000, Adeyi completed a research fellowship in renal pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2005, Adeyi completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and in 2006, Adeyi completed a clinical fellowship in liver and transplantation pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Selvarangan Ponnazhagan, Ph.D.
Jay M. McDonald Endowed Chair in Laboratory Medicine
Ponnazhagan, a professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, was named Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pathology in 2024 after serving as interim in the role since 2023. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Pathology since 1999. His research, focused on breast and prostate cancers, has been supported by industry, the UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center and the NIH, including an R01 award entitled, “Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targeting of Osteoimmune Functions of RANKL in Breast Cancer.”
Ponnazhagan is a senior scientist with the Cystic Fibrosis Research Center, the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering, the Comprehensive Diabetes Center, the Nephrology Research and Training Center, the Comprehensive Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, Bone and Autoimmunity Center, the Global Center for Craniofacial, Oral and Dental Disorders, and the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is co-director of Pathobiology, Pharmacology, and Physiology (P3), one of eight graduate program themes within the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences Doctoral Training Program.
Lalita Shevde-Samant, Ph.D.
Endowed Professorship in Experimental Cancer Therapeutics
Shevde-Samant is Associate Director for Cancer Training, Education, and Career Enhancement, O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology. She also directs the Graduate Biomedical Sciences Cancer Biology Theme and serves as senior scientist for the UAB Immunology Institute, the Diabetes Research Center, the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Comprehensive Diabetes Center and Diabetes Research Center.
Shevde-Samant earned her Ph.D. in Applied Biology from the University of Mumbai in India in 1999 before completing postdoctoral training as a scholar at the Jake Gittlen Cancer Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey in 2002 and as a research associate in the Department of Pathology’s Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology at UAB in 2003. She served in her first faculty position as assistant professor and later as associate professor at the University of South Alabama’s Department of Oncologic Sciences before returning to UAB as an associate professor in the Department of Pathology in 2012. In 2016, Shevde-Samant was promoted to professor.
Shevde-Samant’s research lab investigates molecular signaling mechanisms that present as fundamental aberrations in tumor cells or in their immune microenvironment with the overall goal to apply this knowledge to complement and improve current clinical protocols with new therapeutic strategies.
Thomas Winokur, M.D.
Robert W. Mowry, M.D., Endowed Professor in Pathology
Winokur is a professor in the Division of Anatomic Pathology and section head for Dermatopathology and Pulmonary sections. He has as interim division director in the Divisions of both Women’s Health and Anatomic Pathology.
Winokur joined the UAB Department of Pathology in 1993 as an assistant professor. In 1999, he was promoted to associate professor, and in 2016, to professor. Winokur earned his medical degree in 1979 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri before serving there as an instructor. He completed residency in 1984 at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis before pursuing his fellowship in anatomic pathology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Upon completion in 1985, Winokur served as a senior staff fellow at the Laboratory of the National Cancer Institute Chemoprevention Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland until 1992.
Winokur serves as chair of AP Computer Implementation and the Advanced Testing Committee. He is a member of the Lung Cancer Working Group and the Melanoma and Sarcoma Working Group, and is on the Precision Oncology Committee, Lung Cancer Management Committee, Melanoma and Sarcoma Management Committee and Pulmonary Transplant Review Conference.