professor and chair
Duke University
Dr. Alman is the Urbaniak Professor and Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. He was an Engineering undergraduate, and then went to medical school and trained in surgery in Philadelphia, before moving to Boston for his Orthopaedic residency and molecular biology research training at Tufts University. He trained as a fellow in Pediatric Orthopaedics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he subsequently held a faculty position. While in Toronto he rose through the academic ranks, becoming the A.J. Latner professor and chair of Orthopaedics, and inaugural director of the Toronto Musculoskeletal Center (now a collaborative training program). He is a clinician-scientist, with an active clinical practice focusing on the care of children with pediatric orthopaedic problems including tumors, congenital deformities, spinal deformity, syndromes, muscular dystrophies, and trauma. His research program focuses on understanding the role of developmental signaling pathways in musculoskeletal tumor and reparative processes. The long-term goal of his work is to use this knowledge to identify improved therapeutic approaches to orthopaedic disorders. He is the principal investigator on several national (NIH) research grants, has supervised scores of graduate students, and has over 200 peer-reviewed publications in Journals such as Lancet, Cell, and Nature Medicine. Dr. Alman received numerous awards for his work over the years, including the Premier's Research Excellence Award for outstanding research work in Ontario, the Heune Award for outstanding contributions to Pediatric Orthopaedics, the OREF Research Award, the Association for Surgical Education's Award for Excellence in Innovation, named a fellow of the Orthopaedic Research Society Fellow, and inducted as a member of the Association of American Physicians, for outstanding credentials in biomedical research.
