The University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Neurosurgery Charles A. and Patsy W. Collat Endowed Professor of Neurosurgery Mark Hadley, M.D., FACS, was recently awarded the esteemed distinction of University Professor.
 
According to UAB’s Special Faculty Ranks and Appointments Policy, the rank of University Professor is an appointment “primarily prestigious in a specific discipline and is an academic rank that transcends departmental and disciplinary lines.” The policy states that “individuals holding this rank should be allowed the greatest latitude in apportioning their time between teaching, writing, and scholarly research.” Review the criteria online.
 
"This is an unexpected and prestigious honor. I am grateful for this recognition of my 32-plus years of service, teaching, academic productivity and mentorship across the University of Alabama at Birmingham academic campus engaging undergraduate students, nursing students, medical students, graduate students and residents and fellows at UAB, The Collat School of Business, the Heersink School of Medicine and UAB's Department of Neurosurgery."

About Hadley
 
Hadley, born in 1956 and raised in Napa, California, graduated from Stanford University in 1978 as a four-year letterman in varsity track with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He earned his medical degree in 1982 at Albany Medical College in New York and completed his neurosurgical residency training at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona in 1988. 
 
From 1988 to 1991, Hadley served as an active-duty neurosurgeon in the United States Air Force. He was recruited to the position of Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery at UAB in 1991 by Division Chair Richard B. Morawetz, M.D., and Emeritus Professor James Garber Galbraith, M.D., and joined the faculty in July of that year. 
 
Now, thirty-two years later, Hadley is a dedicated teacher, instructor and clinical scientist with a focused interest in treating disorders of the spine and spinal cord. He has managed tens of thousands of patients and performed more than 15,000 procedures. He is an active leader in organized neurosurgery, past president of multiple international neurosurgical organizations and is former director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Hadley has authored more than 200 scientific peer-reviewed publications, been a visiting professor at major universities throughout the United States and received a variety of academic honors.
 
In 2005, Hadley was honored by his patients and awarded the Charles A. and Patsy W. Collat Endowed Professorship in Neurological Surgery at UAB. In 2008, he was involved in creating and teaching the MedID program at the UAB Collat School of Business, and in 2014, was appointed to the Collat faculty, when he became one of only a few UAB faculty members to be appointed to two different schools of academia on the same campus.