David E. Cohen, MD, MPH, has been named chair of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU Langone Health, the health system announced.

The appointment puts Cohen — a physician holding both an MD and an MPH — at the head of one of the country's most closely watched academic dermatology departments. NYU Langone's dermatology program has long been a fixture at the top of national rankings and a training ground for leaders in clinical dermatology, dermatologic surgery, and cutaneous oncology.

Who is taking the chair?

Cohen arrives with a dual qualification that matters in modern academic medicine: clinical training paired with a master's in public health. That combination typically signals a research portfolio spanning epidemiology, outcomes work, and population-level skin-disease questions — the kind of expertise departments increasingly want as they balance clinical volume with trial-driven dermatology.

NYU Langone has not, in the announcement now circulating, detailed Cohen's prior post, start date, or immediate strategic priorities. Those specifics will shape how quickly the transition registers in the department's research output and fellowship pipeline.

What does this change for dermatology?

For clinicians, a chair appointment at an institution of this scale is rarely just administrative. The chair sets fellowship slots, decides which clinical trials the department runs, and determines how resources flow between subspecialties — psoriasis biologics, cutaneous oncology, contact dermatitis, complex medical dermatology.

For patients in the New York area and beyond, the practical question is continuity: whether referral pathways, specialty clinics, and trial access at NYU Langone hold steady or shift under new leadership. Watch the department's next cycle of program announcements for the answer.

Expect Cohen's first months to be read as a signal — of research direction, of hiring, and of where one of academic dermatology's anchor departments goes next.