Jane Shelby, PhD
Executive Director of Health Sciences
Montana State University
Dr. Nancy Jane Shelby is the Executive Director of Health Sciences at Montana State University. The Division of Health Sciences at Montana State University is home to the Montana WWAMI Medical School, the Office of Rural Health and Area Health Education Center, Health Professions Advising, the Montana Medical Laboratory Scientist program and the American Indian Research Opportunity program.
Prior to her assuming this leadership position on July 1, 2009, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. During her more than two decade long academic service at the University of Utah, Dr. Shelby served for several years on the Final Selection Committee for medical students, was Chair of the Conflict of Interest Committee, was a member of the Institutional Review Board and the Institutional Animal Use and Care Committees, among others.
In her laboratory at the University of Utah School of Medicine, where federally funded studies were conducted on the immunobiology of transplantation, traumatic injury and wound healing, Dr. Shelby taught numerous medical students and surgical residents. A pioneer in microsurgery, she developed a model for primarily vascularized heterotopic heart transplantation in mice, and trained surgeons in microvascular technique. She has served in leadership capacities in many national societies including the American Burn Association and the Surgical Infection Society, and has over 200 published scientific articles, book chapters and abstracts. Dr. Shelby has delivered extensive scientific and educational presentations to academic gatherings in the U.S, Europe and Australia. Dr. Shelby continues to serve as a grant reviewer for NIH, NCI and the Department of Defense. She has taught courses at the undergraduate, graduate and medical school levels and served on many graduate committees. She also has experience in biomedical industry in research and development with patent filings of biologics for use in human wound healing.
Dr. Shelby holds degrees in Psychology (BS) and a MS and PhD (1993) in Medical Sociology with an emphasis in psychoneuroimmunology from the College of Behavioral Sciences, University of Utah. Her dissertation reflected an emerging interest in the relationship between psychologic stress and illness, and evaluated the emotional and immunological profiles of uninjured relatives of severely burn-injured patients.
Dr. Shelby is the founder of the Dr. Bill and Tine Close Hozohni Prescription Glasses and Reading Program, an effort that distributes prescription glasses to preschool and elementary school children in Utah Navajoland.
