UB and Kaleida Health have announced the joint appointment of Carroll McWilliams (Mac) Harmon as chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery and director of the pediatric surgery fellowship at the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and pediatric surgeon-in chief (chief of surgery, pediatric surgery) at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. His faculty appointment will be professor in the UB Department of Surgery.

Harmon, currently professor and director of pediatric surgical research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, will begin his new positions at UB and Women & Children’s Hospital on Jan. 1.

“Dr. Harmon is an outstanding physician-scientist who has all of the leadership, administrative, clinical, research and educational qualities required to transform our Division of Pediatric Surgery into one of the nation’s best,” says Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the medical school.

Harmon has an international reputation for his groundbreaking work in pediatric minimally invasive surgery and surgical intervention in childhood obesity. He currently is one of the principal investigators on a $10 million National Institutes of Health grant that runs until 2018 titled “Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery.” The purpose of the study is to assess the short- and longer-term safety and efficacy of bariatric surgery in adolescents compared to adults.

Harmon is general surgery clinic director at Children’s of Alabama, as well as surgical director of the Children’s Center for Weight Management and the Georgeson Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehab. He also is a scientist at UAB’s Center for Surgical Research and the Clinical Nutrition Research Center.

A past president of the International Pediatric Endosurgery Group, Harmon is author of approximately 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Laparoendoscopic and Advanced Surgical Techniques, and Pediatric Surgical International

Harmon chairs the Childhood Obesity Committee of the American Pediatric Surgical Association and serves on the Humanitarian Task Force of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.

He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and his MD at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He also earned a PhD in molecular physiology and biophysics at Vanderbilt. Harmon did surgical residencies at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a pediatric surgery residency and fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.