Hall of Fame Member Biographies

Joseph Jerome Ferretti

Joseph Jerome Ferretti, Senior Vice-President and Provost of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, has performed outstanding work for the state and nation in the advancement of medical knowledge.  Earning a B.S. at Loyola University in Chicago, he obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Minnesota and did post-doctorate work at The Johns Hopkins University.  He came to the OU College of Medicine in 1969 as an assistant professor and within eight years attained the rank of professor.  In 1983 he became Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology; in 1993 he took the office of Vice President for Research, and then in 1995 he was chosen to be Senior Vice President and Provost.  Over the course of his career, he has authored on his specialties of streptococcal infections, antibiotic resistance, and genomics over 160 scientific papers and co-authored four books.  He acquired an international reputation and has been a Visiting Professor at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) and obtained an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The honors to Dr. Ferretti have been numerous:  he was inducted in 1983 into The Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars; in 1987 he became the George Lynn Cross Research Professor; he has given lectures in England, Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Russia, India, China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. He has served on six medical publication review boards as well as being a grant review panel member of the National Institutes for Health and the National Science Foundation.  Over the years, he has mentored fourteen Ph.D. candidates and overseen the work of eighteen postdoctoral fellows.  For sixteen years he has served as the Provost of the Health Sciences Center, helping it obtain national and international recognition.  For this matchless record of achievement and contribution to Oklahoma and the nation, the OHEHS welcomes Joseph Jerome Ferretti to the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame.