Stephen Rennard, MD

Stephen Rennard is Larson Professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Section of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and courtesy professor of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology and the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy. He received an AB with honors in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University and a doctor in medicine degree with honors from the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He completed internal medicine training at Barnes Hospital, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri and trained in pulmonary diseases at the National Institutes of Health where he remained for seven years, conducting research in the cell biology of lung disease.

He joined the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1984 as chief of pulmonary and critical care, a position he retained until 1997. He was the director of the Nebraska Office of Tobacco Control and Research from 1997 until 2008.

Dr. Rennard currently serves on the board of directors of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Foundation and the Alpha-1 Foundation. He is a member of the American Thoracic Society committee on corporate relations and the National Heart Lung education program executive committee. He is an external advisor to the Thomas Petty Aspen Lung Conference and the University of California-Davis Pulmonary Training Grant.

Dr. Rennard is active in several professional societies and has previously served on the board of directors for the American Thoracic Society, the Council of the American Lung Association and was a governor for the American College of Chest Physicians. He served on the American Board of Internal Medicine, pulmonary section and was a member of the expert panel which prepared the global GOLD guidelines for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for the World Health Organization/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. He has served on several task force committees, including an American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society task force that prepared the society's joint chronic obstructive pulmonary disease standards.

He maintains an active program of clinical investigation in COPD and smoking cessation and a program of basic research in the mechanisms of lung tissue repair and remodeling, including the role of stem cells in disease pathogenesis and repair.