The Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine awarded three new H.A. and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chairs this July, thanks to continued support from the estate of Arthur E. Benning, former president and chairman of the board of Amalgamated Sugar Company. After a formal review process by University of Utah Health leadership, University of Utah President Taylor Randall conferred the prestigious award on faculty in the Departments of Internal Medicine, Human Genetics and Population Health Sciences.
Meet the new chair holders
Mary Jo Pugh, Ph.D., R.N., an accomplished researcher and professor of epidemiology, is a retired Air Force nurse with a distinguished career focused on improving the lives of veterans. She is an investigator at the Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Analytic Sciences Center of Innovation (IDEAS COIN) and at the VA Salt Lake City, where she leads COIN’s efforts in identifying and mitigating health risks among veterans during periods of vulnerability.
Pugh’s work spans epidemiology, health services research and gerontology, with an emphasis on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its long-term effects. She is the author or co-author of 300 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Related to TBI, Pugh currently leads a large-scale longitudinal study linking Department of Defense (DoD) combat theatre and health system data with VA health records to track 2.6 million veterans with the goal of identifying individuals at the highest risk of neurodegeneration, mental health conditions and deficits in functional outcomes. Results could inform potential personalized treatment options for affected veterans across the nation.
Aaron Quinlan, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of Human Genetics and leads the Quinlan Lab, where he works to combine computational advances with genomics technologies to study the causes and consequences of genome mutation, reveal genetic variation and understand the genetic basis of rare diseases. The Quinlan Lab’s discoveries and tools are used worldwide for the analysis of genetic data.
Quinlan also serves as co-director of the Utah Center for Genetic Discovery and as co-director of the Data Exploration and Learning for Precision Health Intelligence (DELPHI) Initiative, a new effort at the U that aims to expand data science expertise to accelerate scientific discovery and implementation through increased access to data, enhanced education, research, community building and national distinction. He is a deeply engaged mentor and has trained several graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at the U, of whom several are now running independent labs as tenure-track faculty members.
Daniel Scharfstein, ScD, chief of the Division of Biostatistics, joined the U in 2020 after 23 years at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research is focused on reporting reliable results from medical studies when data is incomplete or irregular—for example, from irregular assessment times or non-random and time-varying treatment assignment. Scharfstein was an integral member of a 2010 National Research Council panel convened to produce recommendations on the prevention and treatment of missing data in randomized trials. This report served as the basis for the PCORI Methodology Standards on Preventing and Handling Missing Data, and a related report by Scharfstein provides guidance to pharmaceutical companies seeking regulatory approval.
Scharfstein is the principal statistician of the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC), a network funded by the DoD to conduct multi-center clinical research to improve treatment and outcomes of orthopedic trauma sustained in the military. He has also served as the lead statistician on a number of large evaluation studies, including the National Study of the Costs and Outcomes of Trauma (NSCOT), Guided Care for Chronically Ill Older Adults and Health Steps for Young Children.
About the Benning Medical Society
In 2005, the University of Utah Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine received a $22.5 million bequest from the estate of Arthur E. Benning, which established the Benning Medical Society, a distinguished circle of researchers and clinicians. Benning Presidential Chairs serve five-year terms and are chosen based on their demonstrated commitment to the Society’s mission of excellence in patient care, education, research and service. In addition, they embody U of U Health’s strong spirit of collaboration.
Each year, the Benning Medical Society invites a world-renowned researcher/scientist to campus to present a free public lecture on current, cutting-edge research that impacts community health.
On Nov. 9, 2026, the Society will host Edward Chang, M.D., at the Natural History Museum of Utah at 6 p.m. for his talk, “The Neural Code for Words.” Chang, a pioneering physician-scientist, serves as the Margaret Liu Collins and Edward B. Collins Distinguished Professor in Neurological Surgery at UCSF’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences, where he specializes in treating adults with complex epilepsy, brain tumors, chronic pain conditions and nervous system and movement disorders.