R. Rodney Howell, M. D. is Professor and Chairman Emeritus of Pediatrics and Emeritus Member of the Hussman Institute for Human Genomics at The Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami. He is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics in Clinical Biochemical Genetics.
After medical school at Duke, and following four years at the National Institutes of Health, he was named the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Scholar in Mental Retardation and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Howell was the then David R. Park Professor and Founding Chairman of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and later Chair of Pediatrics at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is the author of over 175 original articles, numerous abstracts and other material dealing with serious genetic diseases in childhood. Recent work has focused on newborn screening. He has received the William G. Anlyan Lifetime Achievement Award from the Duke University Medical Alumni Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American College of Medical Genetics Foundation in 2012, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Genetics from the March of Dimes. In 2015, he was the first recipient of the Advocacy Award from the American Society of Human Genetics for his excellence and achievement in applications of human genetics for the common good.
In 2013, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Federal Rare Disease Act, the United States FDA named him one of the 30 Rare Disease Heroes.
Dr. Howell was founding Chair of the U.S. Congressionally-mandated Secretary’s Advisory Committee of Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children (2004-2011), the committee that advises the Secretary of HHS on issues concerning genetic testing in children. This committee oversaw development of the Recommended Uniform Newborn Screening Panel in the United States.
Dr. Howell is the immediate Past President of the International Society of Neonatal Screening, based in the Netherlands.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Howell has served the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). He was first a member of the Medical Advisory Committee and then Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Howell was Chairman of the MDA Board of Directors from 2007-2020.
