Associate Dean for Research

The Office of the Associate Dean for Research (OADR) oversees and enhances research endeavors from all 13 departments at JABSOM and over 12 centers and institutes. It also oversees master’s and doctoral degree programs and related certificate programs offered by five JABSOM departments. The role of the OADR is to drive strategy, assist research with facilities and administrative needs, and celebrate research discoveries.

The OADR was established to support JABSOM’s efforts to grow its research portfolio and support its research endeavors, partnerships, and graduate training programs. Research is recognized as an essential component for accreditation of the medical school. Further, research addresses the critical need for the translation of research findings into medical practice to improve health outcomes for our local community. As a community-based medical school, this involves substantial partnerships with all our local hospitals and clinics.

W. Steven Ward, PhD is Interim Associate Dean for Research at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). He is also a professor and director of the UH Institute for Biogenesis Research. He attended Belmont Abbey College for three years in his native North Carolina before travelling abroad to complete his B.S. in chemistry and his M.S. in biochemistry at the American University of Beirut. He continued his graduate education at Vanderbilt University where he earned his PhD in biochemistry in 1985. His dissertation focused on chromatin structure in rat liver cancer cells, and he provided the first evidence that cytokeratins can be associated with DNA. He then spent five years as an oncology fellow under the mentorship of Donald S. Coffey at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. The labs were located in the Department of Urology and Dr. Ward worked closely with academic urologists, residents and medical students and developed a strong background in clinical research. During this time, he identified the major components of tertiary sperm chromatin structure, which remains the current focus of his research. From 1990 to 2000, Dr. Ward was the Director of Urologic Research, in the Division of Urology, Department of Surgery at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He continued to develop his own research in sperm chromatin structure, and became a recognized expert in the field internationally. He also oversaw resident research projects for 20 residents, participated in faculty development, and was an important part of the development of the New Jersey Cancer Institute. In 2000 he was recruited to the University of Hawaii to help develop the new Institute for Biogenesis Research (IBR). He continued to be productive in research in both sperm chromatin structure but expanded his focus to include oogenesis and follicuologenesi. In 2005 he was named the Interim director of the IBR, and in 2008 was appointed its permanent director. Dr. Ward has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1991. From 2009 through 2025, he was awarded a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant from the NIH to support the development of ten faculty in the IBR and the center, itself. Because of his experience in clinical research and leadership, in 2014 he was appointed the Chief of the Division of Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine.