February 17, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Dr. Ray L. Watts has been named chair of the department of neurology at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham). Currently, Watts is the A. Worley Brown professor and vice chair in the department of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta. He will join UAB July 1.

Watts succeeds the late Dr. John N. Whitaker, who served as chairman of neurology at UAB from 1985 to 2001.

“We are pleased and proud to be adding a leader of Ray Watts’ caliber to our medical school,” says Dr. William B. Deal, vice president and dean of the school of medicine at UAB. “Dr. Watts is a skilled clinician, a renowned scientist and an outstanding administrator.”

Watts is a native of Birmingham and earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering from UAB in 1976. He was valedictorian of his medical school class at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1980. Thereafter he did residency and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Watts also served a two-year fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before joining the faculty at Emory.

Watts and his colleagues have built an internationally renowned Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Research and Clinical Center at Emory, and plans are underway to establish a strong collaborative relationship between UAB and Emory researchers.

“I believe we are at the beginning of the century of the brain and this is a very exciting time in neuroscience,” says Watts. “We are poised to gain greater understanding of how the brain works, and to develop innovative treatments for neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke and brain cancer.”

Watts is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He has been listed in the book “Best Doctors in America,” by Woodward and White since 1994. He has also been named as one of “America’s Top Doctors” by Castle and Connolly since 2000 and was chosen as one of “Atlanta’s Best Doctors” by Atlanta Magazine in 2001.

He is a member of the American Neurological Association; American Academy of Neurology; Society for Neuroscience; Alpha Omega Alpha; Movement Disorders Society; International Brain Research Organization and the American Medical Association.