Professor and Chair
Professor and Chair of the Department of Head & Neck Surgery at UCLA; Thomas C. Calcaterra, MD, Chair in Head and Neck Surgery
A highly renowned surgeon, scientist and educator, Maie A. St. John MD, PhD, FACS is Professor and Chair of the Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Professor of Bioengineering at UCLA. She holds the Thomas C. Calcaterra MD, Chair in Head and Neck Surgery and is Co-Director of the UCLA Head and Neck Cancer Program. Dr. St. John’s laboratory studies the mechanisms of tumor progression and metastasis, incorporating the results of their laboratory-based research into the development of novel therapeutics. She is an outstanding educator who has provided mentorship to numerous trainees, and serves as a member of several prestigious organizations including the Executive Council of the AHNS, ACS Board of Governors Advisory Council, and the American Laryngological Association. She is a senior examiner for the ABOto and a reviewer for the AAO-HNS CORE grants, and NIH/NIDCR, NCI and NIBIB study sections. She has been the recipient of multiple awards for teaching and research.
Dr. St. John received her BS from Stanford and MD and PhD degrees from Yale. She completed residency and postdoctoral training at UCLA. Dr. St. John’s clinical expertise is in intraoperative tumor margin delineation in the resection of head and neck cancers to allow for precision surgery. Her efforts have helped in the development of strong interdepartmental research programs in Head & Neck Surgery and Bioengineering. This work has led to clinical trials and patent applications, and has been consistently funded by the NIH, charitable foundations, and industry.
In addition to maintaining a busy surgical practice, Dr. St. John is active in clinical research and is closely involved in training young physician-scientists in her role as Executive Director of Cancer Research and Education at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is a prolific author and a sought-after lecturer internationally.