Dr. Susan Gurley is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Chair of the Department of Medicine. She is a nephrology physician scientist who studies the most common causes of kidney disease: diabetic nephropathy and hypertension. After completing her PhD in biophysical chemistry (University of Mississippi), she obtained her MD at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. She completed her residency in internal medicine and fellowship in nephrology at Duke University School of Medicine, where she began her faculty career. At Duke, she held several leadership roles focused on faculty development and biomedical research. Notably, she was Section Chief, Renal at the Durham VA HCS from2012-2018. In 2018 she was recruited to Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) to lead the Division of Nephrology & Hypertension and was later named interim chair, Department of Medicine (2021-2023). On August 1, 2023, Dr. Gurley was appointed Chair, Department of Medicine at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California.

Dr. Gurley’s current research program utilizes mouse models of human diseases to study disease
pathogenesis. She has more than 20 years of experience studying the pathogenesis of hypertension and diabetic nephropathy using transgenic mouse models in renal physiologic studies. Dr. Gurley has extensive knowledge of the renin-angiotensin system (in particular the type 1 angiotensin II receptor and ACE2), including conditional gene targeting in mice, cardiovascular studies in mice, angiotensin peptide metabolism, and genomic and metabolomics analyses. A major focus of her laboratory is on the function of ACE2 in blood pressure regulation and kidney injury.