Nancy C. Andrews, M.D., Ph.D.

Nancy Andrews is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Boston Children’s Hospital.  Prior to this appointment, she served for 10 years as Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Duke University, where she was the Nanaline H. Duke Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. Before moving to Duke she was on the faculty of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she was an attending physician in hematology/oncology, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the George Richards Minot Professor of Pediatrics.  She served as Director of the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD program and later as Dean for Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies at Harvard Medical School. 

Dr. Andrews’ research laboratory elucidated fundamental aspects of mammalian iron utilization, and discovered molecular causes of several human diseases characterized by abnormal handling of iron.  Her work was recognized by election to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), among other organizations. She is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. Her work outside her home institutions includes serving as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, as Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the governing Councils of both the NAM and the NAS and as a member of the MIT Corporation and its Executive Committee. She currently serves as Home Secretary for the NAS, with oversight responsibility for member selection, awarding of honors and prizes and organization of the annual meeting.  

Dr. Andrews received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale working with Joan Steitz, her Ph.D. in Biology from MIT working with David Baltimore, and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She did her internship and residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and her fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Andrews and her scientist husband, Dr. Bernard Mathey-Prevot, have two adult children who are training in science and medicine in Boston.