After medical training and during his dermatology residency at Cornell, Al Kopf became interested in melanoma. He went on to make a monumental impact upon the way we think about this skin cancer. He established the Malignant Melanoma Cooperative Group with NYU and four other universities. With the help of this group, he developed one of the earliest melanoma patient clinical databases which was designed to assess the effects of multiple variables on the survival of melanoma patients.

Professor Murrell is head of the department of Dermatology, St. George Hospital at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She has been the director of Australia’s first dedicated dermatology clinical trial center since 1996. Her basic research and clinical interests have focused on patients with bullous disorders. She has published over 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Eugene Bauer has had a distinguished career in dermatology. He spent 17 years as faculty at Washington University in St. Louis before moving to Stanford to become chair of Dermatology (1988) and, later, dean at the Stanford University School of Medicine (1995). During his tenure at Stanford, he oversaw the merger of the medical centers of Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco.

Eugene Van Scott was an innovative dermatology researcher and entrepreneur who will be remembered as a superb physician scientist. Dr. Van Scott headed dermatology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 1953-1968. In 1972 he received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medial Research Award for demonstrating the usefulness of topical mechlorethamine (nitrogen mustard) in the treatment of patients with T-cell lymphoma.

Francisco Camacho Martinez was born in Melilla, Spain in 1945. An interest in anatomy and endocrinology during his early medical studies in Granada led to a fascination with dermatology and dermatologic surgery. Plastic surgery and dermatology in Granada were under the direction of his mentor Professor Felipe Dulanto, so he was able to obtain certification in both specialties.

1905 – 1997

Leon Goldman, the “father of laser surgery,” began experimenting with lasers in his research laboratory shortly after they were invented in 1960 and performed the first laser surgery in 1966. He was the founding president of American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS) and also served as president of the American Society of Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) which named its Leon Goldman Medal in his honor.

Phillip Frost is one of the nation’s leading philanthropists, a highly respected dermatologist, and a successful businessman. Frost is the third son of a shoe store owner from South Philadelphia. His family lived above his father’s store for a good part of his childhood. His first job, at age 13, was working in a local hardware shop after school. He earned a degree in French literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957 and received a medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine In 1961.

1875 – 1940

Rose Hirschler, the first woman dermatologist in the United States, the first woman to chair a department of dermatology and the only woman among the founders of the American Academy of Dermatology, was born in Butler, Indiana at a time when women could not vote and most medical societies discouraged interactions with women physicians.

1921 – 2022

1941 – December 20, 2018

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in history, Steve Katz completed his medical training at Tulane University. Following a dermatology residency at the University of Miami and serving in the military, he received postdoctoral training at the University of London where he earned a PhD in immunology in 1974.

December 13, 1909 – December 13, 1992

Walter Fredrick Lever was born in Erfurt, Germany, the older of a set of non-identical twins. His father, a practicing dermatologist, wanted Walter to become a urologist and preferred that his brother become a dermatologist. At the age of twelve, Walter informed his parents that he wished to become an “academic” dermatologist, the reason being that he was impressed by the physicians who could compose the articles in medical journals that his father brought home to read.