Mark Oyama has been named interim chair of the department of clinical sciences and advanced medicine (CSAM) at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet), effective September 1, 2021.

Dr. Oyama succeeds Oliver Garden, who led the department since 2016. Dr. Garden will become Dean of Louisiana State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Oyama served as an assistant and then associate professor of cardiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois before arriving at Penn Vet in 2005 as an associate professor of cardiology. Six years later, in 2011, Dr. Oyama became a professor of cardiology; he also served as chief of the section of cardiology through 2019. Last year, he was named as the Charlotte Newton Sheppard Endowed Chair of Medicine. Dr. Oyama serves as head of the clinical sciences research division of CSAM. His clinical and research interests involve mitral valve disease, novel therapies for heart failure, clinical epidemiology, and cardiac biomarkers.

A diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM), Dr. Oyama served as president of the ACVIM, specialty of cardiology. He is a member of the Perelman School of Medicine’s Institute for Translational Medicine and the Penn Cardiovascular Institute, and he serves as an associate scholar at Perelman’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. 

Dr. Oyama earned his veterinary doctorate at the University of Illinois and his master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency at the University of California at Davis.