Vijay M. Rao, MD, was named chair of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Board of Directors at last week’s RSNA 2016 annual meeting in Chicago.

“As Chair, I will work with the Board to advance patient care initiatives, focusing on quality, safety and efficiency in a patient-centered model of care through implementation of IT tools, in partnership with industry,” Rao, a RSNA member since 1981, said in a statement. “I will also work with Society leadership to find ways to leverage IT tools to provide educational resources of the RSNA at point of care for radiologists.”

Rao is presently the David C. Levin Professor and chair of Radiology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, where she has been employed ever since first completing her residency there in 1978.

Rao has published hundreds of papers and abstracts over the years, as well as numerous book chapters. She also co-edited a medical textbook, MRI and CT Atlas of Correlative Imaging in Otolaryngology, and served on the editorial boards of Academic Radiology, Journal of the American College of Radiology, and American Journal of Roentgenology.

In addition, Rao has won the Association of Program Directors in Radiology’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the Association of University Radiologists’ Gold Medal, and the American Association for Women Radiologists’ Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award.