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Deborah V. Deas, MD
First tenured African American faculty, 2001
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Deborah V. Deas, MD, was born on June 30, 1957 in Adams Run, South Carolina. She received her bachelor's degree in biology from the College of Charleston in 1978, a master's in public health from the University of South Carolina in 1979, and her medical degree at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1989. After graduating from medical school, Deas completed both a residency in psychiatry in 1992 and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry in 1994 at MUSC. She also completed a fellowship in adolescent substance abuse research at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Alcohol and Alcoholism in 1994.
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Upon completing her formal education and training, Deas joined the faculty of the MUSC College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, where she worked for over two decades. In 2001, she became the first African American on faculty to be granted tenure, and that same year was named associate dean for admissions for the College of Medicine. She was promoted to full professor in 2004.
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Over the course of her career at MUSC, Deas was appointed to several important administrative positions, including senior associate dean for medical education, associate dean for admissions, and chief academic officer in the College of Medicine. From 2014 until early 2016, Deas served as interim dean of medicine before joining the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine as the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean and Chief Executive Officer for Clinical Affairs in May 2016.