SUNY appoints first woman president of Upstate Medical University

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Dr. Danielle Laraque-Arena will be the first woman to lead Upstate Medical University.

The SUNY board of trustees has appointed Laraque-Arena as the next president of the medical school.

Her appointment is effective Jan. 14, 2016, Upstate Medical University said in a news release issued Thursday.

 Laraque-Arena currently serves as chair of the department of pediatrics at Maimonides Medical Center and vice president of Maimonides Infants and Children’s Hospital, both in Brooklyn.

She is also a professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City.

Laraque-Arena will replace Dr. Gregory Eastwood, who has been leading Upstate Medical University since November 2013. Eastwood took over for previous president Dr. David Smith, on an interim basis, after SUNY placed Smith on leave amid review of compensation issues. Smith later resigned. Eastwood also served as Upstate’s president from 1993 to 2006.

The appointment of Laraque-Arena follows a national search process that began in February, Upstate Medical said.

The medical school had created a 19-member search committee that included representatives from the faculty, student body, alumni, hospital, the Upstate Foundation, and professional support staff.

Laraque-Arena received her doctor of medicine degree from the UCLA School of Medicine. She also earned her bachelor’s in chemistry from UCLA.

She completed her internship and residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also served as a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow in general academic pediatrics.

Laraque-Arena was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1962. She speaks French, Creole, Italian, and English.

She is married to Dr. Luigi Arena and has two children, Marc Anthony Arena and Julia Marie Arena.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com