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Peck named associate dean
of research and graduate studies

Dr. Ammon Peck

Ammon B. Peck, Ph.D., an immunology researcher and professor at the University of Florida, has been named associate dean of research and graduate studies at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, effective Sept. 1.

Peck currently is a professor in the College of Medicine’s department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine, with a joint appointment in the College of Dentistry’s department of oral biology. He helped build the graduate student program in immunology and molecular pathology within the College of Medicine during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Since then, Peck has continued to be engaged in classroom lectures, seminars and journal clubs in addition to directing independent research projects and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows and residents pursuing research careers.

He will succeed Charles Courtney, D.V.M., Ph.D., following Courtney’s retirement from the position after 30 years of service on the college faculty.

Peck has been involved in many aspects of service while at UF, including serving as president of the College of Medicine faculty and as a member and vice-chairman of the Academic Health Center’s Institutional Review Board. He also co-established and co-directed the Type II Center for Research on Women’s Health, an intercollegiate center encompassing all six AHC colleges.

An active entrepreneur and consultant, Peck co-founded Ixion Biotechnology, Inc., to commercialize research discoveries in diabetes and hyperoxaluria. The company received the Tibbetts Award from the Small Business Association in Washington, D.C. in 2000.

Peck’s recent research has focused on three main areas: molecular mechanisms underlying autoimmune diseases; pathogenesis of human and animal diseases involving hyperoxaluria; and stem cell biology. His laboratory’s research on hyperoxaluria and stem cells has received wide-spread national and international press coverage.

Among the many honors Peck has received in his academic career are the 2012 International Association of Dental Research’s Distinguished Scientist Award for Salivary Research; the College of Medicine’s Exemplary Teacher’s Award in 2008; the Council of Biotechnology Award from Tsurumi University, Yokahama Japan in 2002; UF’s Step Professorship in 2001; and the UF Research Foundation’s Distinguished Professor designation in 1999.

Peck received his Ph.D. degree in medical microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972. From 1974 to 1982 he worked at Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, overlapping his appointment at UF in 1979.