McManus is professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at UMass Chan’s T.H. Chan School of Medicine, founding director of UMass Chan’s Program in Digital Medicine, and is responsible for establishing UMass Chan’s AI Assurance Lab.
Dr. David McManus will become chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School, replacing Dr. Michael Collins, who will step down at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.McManus has served since 2020 as professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at UMass Chan’s T.H. Chan School of Medicine and at UMass Memorial Health, the Worcester-based hospital system affiliated with the university.McManus is the founding director of UMass Chan’s Program in Digital Medicine and is responsible for establishing UMass Chan’s AI Assurance Lab. Opened in April 2025, the lab studies the impacts of artificial intelligence in healthcare delivery. McManus was selected to replace Collins due to his strong background and vision for a collaborative future for UMass Chan, the University of Massachusetts system announced Tuesday.“Dr. McManus is the right leader to guide UMass Chan Medical School into the future,” UMass President Marty Meehan said in the announcement. “His pioneering work in digital healthcare and AI, his deep experience in both the clinical and research fields, and his vision and collaborative nature, reflect the very best of UMass Chan.”McManus manages more than $70 million annually in research funding, overseeing 16 divisions, more than 370 faculty, and 80 principal investigators. In his role as founding director of the digital medicine program, he has generated more than $140 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health and has published more than 400 scientific papers.“We can’t imagine a more talented and thoughtful leader to undertake the role of chancellor than Dr. David McManus, who has already left an indelible mark on the lives of countless patients throughout Central Massachusetts,” Dr. Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial, said in the announcement.McManus has worked at UMass Chan for 17 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He earned both his master’s and medical degrees from the Worcester-based medical school, and he joined the school as an assistant professor of medicine in 2009.
"This institution has given me so much professionally and personally, and I will lean into this role with every fiber of my being to guide this institution through this moment of enormous change in medicine, education, and society," McManus said in the announcement.
His appointment to the incoming chancellor role comes a week after Meehan and UMass Chan’s search committee identified three finalists for the position. Along with McManus, the university was considering Dr. Steven Goldstein, vice chancellor of health affairs at the University of California, Irvine; and Dr. Frances Jensen, professor of neurology and co-director of Penn Medicine Translational Neuroscience Center at University of Pennsylvania. The search committee had also named a fourth finalist, Dr. Charles Cairns, dean of the College of Medicine at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, but he withdrew his candidacy.UMass Chan is one of five campuses in the university system led by Meehan. The other campuses are UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, UMass Lowell and UMass Dartmouth, home to UMass Law School.Dr. Michael Collins, chancellor at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester and senior vice president for health sciences at University of Massachusetts PHOTO COURTESY OF UMASS CHAN MEDICAL SCHOOLThe medical school’s upcoming leadership transition will mark the end of Collins' run as the longest-serving chancellor in the history of the entire UMass system.In 2005, Collins became the chancellor of UMass Boston before moving to UMass Chan in 2007 as interim chancellor. He assumed the permanent role in 2008.In June, he announced his plan to step down from the chancellor role at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year. Collins is the second-highest paid state government employee in Massachusetts, having earned $1.6 million in 2024. He trails only UMass men’s basketball coach Frank Martin.While he will no longer lead the university, Collins told WBJ in June that he intends to stay with UMass Chan to support its new chancellor while continuing to teach and mentor.Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare, manufacturing, and higher education industries.
