Alumnus Christopher Wolfgang honored with Distinguished Alumni Award

Christopher L. Wolfgang, an alumnus of the Penn State Eberly College of Science, is one of seven Penn State alumni selected by the Board of Trustees to receive the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award, the University's highest honor presented to its alumni. The award salutes the achievements of outstanding alumni whose "personal lives, professional achievements, and community service exemplify the objectives of their alma mater."

Wolfgang earned his B.S. in science from the Eberly College of Science in 1989, his M.S. in physiology, interdisciplinary fields, from Penn State in 1991, and completed his residency at the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in 2004. He will be presented with the award at an event on May 31, 2019.

Wolfgang is the chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology; vice chair for Surgical Oncology; and surgical director of the Pancreatic Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic, the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Clinic, and the Multidisciplinary Liver Tumor Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Health Care System. He is also the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer Precision Medicine Program. Wolfgang focuses his practice in hepatobiliary and pancreas surgery, mainly in the care of patients with cancer or premalignant diseases.

Within the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he is the John L. Cameron Professor of Surgery and professor of surgery, pathology, and oncology. In addition to teaching the next generation of doctors, Wolfgang runs a translational research program concentrated on the understanding of pancreatic cancer tumor biology through genetic approaches and characterization of systemic spread.

In 2014, Wolfgang was inducted into the Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence at John Hopkins, where he has practiced and taught since completing a fellowship in Advanced Alimentary Tract Surgery in 2005. Prior, he completed his surgical residency at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in 2004. He underwent additional research training as a postdoctoral fellow in surgical oncology at Penn State and in human molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins. Wolfgang obtained a combined M.D./Ph.D. degree in 1998 from Temple University School of Medicine with a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He spoke in 2016 as the inaugural speaker of the Penn State College of Medicine’s Distinguished Surgical Alumni Lecture series.