Professor Jeffrey Withey, Ph.D., has been appointed interim chair of the Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology.

Dean Wael Sakr, M.D., announced the appointment April 14.

Dr. Withey, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, has conducted research with collaborators at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases in Kolkata, India, in 2014-2015 and again in 2023-2024. In 2020 he was named a Fulbright Scholar Alumni Ambassador, serving a two-year term to advocate for Fulbright programs.

He joined the School of Medicine faculty in 2006.

An academic editor for PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and associate editor for Frontiers in Microbiology, Dr. Withey serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology, the Journal of Microbiological Methods and Current Clinical Microbiology Reports.

Dr. Withey's laboratory studies bacterial pathogenesis with an emphasis on host-pathogen interactions, environmental reservoirs and transmission, and the regulation of virulence gene expression.

He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Johns Hopkins University and his doctoral degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2000 from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Withey replaces Professor Philip Pellett, Ph.D., who has stepped down after serving as department chair since November 2016. He remains a member of the faculty.