Lewis Landsberg, professor of medicine and chair of the medicine department at Northwestern University Medical School, has been appointed vice president for medical affairs as well as dean of the Medical School.

Landsberg, who was named dean March 23, has served as interim dean of the Medical School since August. He will begin his new position April 1.

University President Henry Bienen said Landsberg’s wealth of experience made him the ideal candidate for the job.

“He has a very strong track record,” Bienen said. “We did a thorough, worldwide search (and found) a lot of highly qualified candidates, including a number of sitting deans at prestigious medical schools.

“But at the end of the day, we thought Dr. Landsberg was the strongest candidate.”

Landsberg, 61, joined the NU faculty in 1990 after teaching for 18 years at Harvard Medical School, where he was also chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital.

NU began the search for a new dean in August, when then-dean Harvey Colten resigned after spending less than two years in the position.

Colten said he resigned because elevating the school’s academic standings would have taken longer than he originally expected.

“This isn’t from a lack of support,” Colten told The Daily when he announced his resignation in June. “It’s really a timetable issue. We’re turning around a battleship, not a cruiser.”

Colten remains on the Medical School faculty as a professor of pediatrics and microbiology-immunology.

One of the new dean’s tasks will be to raise the Medical School’s academic standing. In U.S. News & World Report’s most recent rankings, the Medical School was 21st.

In a press release, Provost Lawrence Dumas said Landsberg’s leadership qualities would allow him to improve the school’s quality.

“As chair of the largest department at the Medical School and as interim dean, Dr. Landsberg has developed excellent research and clinical programs and recruited outstanding faculty,” Dumas said.

“His vision and leadership expertise will enable Northwestern to achieve our ambitious agenda for expanding and enhancing our medical research enterprise and clinical practice,” he added.

In his research, Landsberg has focused on regulation of the metabolism and the circulatory system. His work has helped researchers discover more about the relationship between obesity and hypertension.

Landsberg, a summa cum laude graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine. From there, he went on to complete his internship and residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was also chief resident.

Landsberg was also a research associate at the National Institutes of Health and an assistant professor of medicine at Yale before joining the Harvard faculty.

Landsberg did not return phone calls on Monday.