New APS Leaders Take Office at Inaugural American Physiology Summit

Long Beach, Calif. (April 23, 2023)—The American Physiological Society (APS) is pleased to announce its new member leaders for 2023–24: President Willis K. “Rick” Samson, PhD, DSc, FAPS; President-elect Timothy Musch, PhD, FAPS, FACSM; and Councilors Michael Caplan, MD, PhD, FAPS; Karla Haack, PhD; and Gina Yosten, PhD. The new officers were elected by APS membership and took office April 23, 2023, at the American Physiology Summit, APS’ flagship annual meeting, in Long Beach, California.

Willis K. “Rick” Samson, PhD, DSc, FAPS, is professor of pharmacology and physiology and director of biomedical science graduate programs in the School of Medicine at Saint Louis University (SLU). He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; his PhD from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas; and his DSc from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Samson is the vice chair of the SLU School of Medicine’s Pharmacology and Physiology Department. He has served on numerous study sections and editorial boards for a number of scientific organizations and journals.

Samson served the Society on the APS Council from 2016 to 2019 and was a member of the Joint Program and Public Affairs committees as well as the Committee on Committees. He is also a former member of the Endocrinology & Metabolism Section Steering Committee. Samson is a past associate editor and editor-in-chief for the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology and is currently deputy editor of Physiological Reviews. He has been a Fellow of the American Physiological Society (FAPS) since 2015.

Timothy Musch, PhD, FAPS, FACSM, is a University Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Kinesiology and Anatomy & Physiology at Kansas State University. He earned his PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Wisconsin and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Musch’s service to the Society includes prior roles as councilor, chair of the Animal Care & Experimentation Committee and the Committee on Committees, and as a member of the Public Affairs, Education, Fellows, Membership, Nominating, Section Advisory and Strategic Planning committees. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Physiology and the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology. Musch was the Guyton Educator of the Year in 2013 and received FAPS status in 2016.

Michael Caplan, MD, PhD, FAPS, is the C.N.H. Long Professor and chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned his MD and PhD degrees from Yale University. Caplan has been honored with awards for his work in renal physiology from numerous organizations, including APS, the American Society of Nephrologists and the National Science Foundation. Caplan is editor-in-chief of the journal Physiology and is a member of the Physiology Summit Leadership Committee. He received FAPS status in 2019.

Karla Haack, PhD, is a medical writer at Merck and Co., where she collaboratively authors pre-approval regulatory documents. Prior to joining Merck in 2021, Haack taught anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology courses at Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Georgia. She earned her PhD in molecular biology from Georgia Institute of Technology and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Haack was a member of the College of Science and Mathematics Inclusion and Diversity Committee and liaison to the chief diversity officer at KSU. She is the outgoing chair of the APS Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee.

Gina Yosten, PhD, is a tenured associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at SLU, where she also earned her PhD. She is a longtime APS member and has served the Society in multiple capacities, including as the chair of the Endocrinology & Metabolism Section and a member of the Section Advisory and Joint Program committees. Yosten is the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology and was APS’ 2023 Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lecturer.

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: For more information, please contact APS Media Relations or 301.634.7314.

Physiology is a broad area of scientific inquiry that focuses on how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. The American Physiological Society connects a global, multidisciplinary community of more than 10,000 biomedical scientists and educators as part of its mission to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. The Society drives collaboration and spotlights scientific discoveries through its 16 scholarly journals and programming that support researchers and educators in their work.