Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Theodore DeWeese ’86

Pioneering Excellence in Cancer Care and Academic Leadership

Dr. Theodore DeWeese | 1986 | Chemistry
2025 Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award Winner

Theodore DeWeese, M.D. is the CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine and The Frances Watt Baker, M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D. Dean of the Medical Faculty—overseeing one of the nation’s preeminent medical schools and leading global health systems. A professor of radiation oncology, oncology, and urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, his areas of clinical expertise include prostate cancer and urological oncology.

Dr. DeWeese earned his M.D. from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and completed his residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he served as chief resident and performed a laboratory research fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute. He was the founding Chair and Professor of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Johns Hopkins, which became one of the most successful and highly ranked departments of its kind under his leadership.

“Since I got to Hopkins and joined that faculty, I have treated thousands and thousands of patients with cancer. MSU Denver will never know or see any of them, but that medical impact started here. In addition, I’ve run a cancer research laboratory for 30 years, developing new techniques and processes to treat patients with cancer. That, also, had its origins here at MSU. And now, as the CEO of the “crown jewel of academic medicine in the United States and the world, John’s Hopkins” I’m extremely proud to be a MSU Denver graduate, to be a Roadrunner.”

An international expert in the management of men with prostate cancer, Dr. DeWeese has conducted several “first-in-human” clinical translations of novel therapies. He has published over 225 peer-reviewed papers, authored numerous book chapters, given more than 130 national and international lectures, and mentored countless trainees, medical students, and residents.

In addition to his appointment to numerous committees and councils at Johns Hopkins, Dr. DeWeese served as President and Chair of the Board for the American Society for Radiation Oncology and was appointed by the National Academy of Sciences as a scientific counselor for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan.