Roberto F. Machado, MD
Theodore E. Woodward Professor of Medicine
Chair, Department of Medicine Chair
Physician in Chief, University of Maryland Medical Center
Member of the ATS Assembly on Pulmonary Circulation Planning Committee
1. Three statements about you – two true, one false.
- I am the son of two psychiatrists.
- I played for the Brazilian national U15 development soccer (should really be called football) team.
- I once ate 28 slices of pizza in one sitting.
2. Give us your ‘elevator pitch’ biography.
I was born in Brazil and came to the U.S. in 1996 for post graduate training with the goal of becoming an endocrinologist. I did my residency at the University of Miami and fell in love with critical care and pulmonary medicine. I did my PCCM training at the Cleveland Clinic and fell in love with translational pulmonary science under the mentorship of Dr. Serpil Erzurum and subsequently Dr. Mark Gladwin at the National Institutes of Health. I was faculty at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois of Chicago, and Indiana University where I was Chief of the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care Sleep and Occupational Medicine for eight years. On Nov. 1, 2025, I was appointed Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. My work focuses on pulmonary vascular diseases and pulmonary complications of sickle cell disease both clinically and in the laboratory, where our team studies mechanisms of pulmonary vascular remodeling and lung injury.
I am a physician-scientist and recognize that I am an “endangered species”. As such, I am passionate about promoting the careers of physician and PhD scientists. Not only sustaining but growing this pipeline is a major priority of mine as a leader and member of wonderful professional organizations like the ATS.
3. What would you tell yourself as an Early Career Professional?
Be less dogmatic and more flexible. I remember a conversation I had with Mark Gladwin when I was a post-doc in his lab. He suggested I learn and do a bit of animal-based bench work. My young and arrogant response was: “I will never do animal work! Not clinically relevant!!”. Learned my lesson fast later in life and now I am comfortable pivoting and changing strategies. An important skill, particularly in a dynamic era like the current one.
4. If you weren’t in medicine, and were in a different industry altogether, what would you be?
Pretty cliché but I would love to be a guitar player in a rock band. More realistically, perhaps a lawyer: I like to argue!
5. What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
If I have many days off, I love traveling with my wife and two sons. We have been to many places together. Single day off? Out on my bike cycling with my wife.
6. What areas of medicine are you most excited to see develop?
Super aspirational but I would like to see the combination of information technology, large language models/AI and engineering devices used to help early detection and or/prevention of disease onset/worsening at the ambulatory level in patient’s homes.
7. What is one advancement in your field you’d like to see in your career?
I would like to see translation of medical discoveries and advances to everyone regardless of economic, ethnic, social and geographic background.
8. Which statement (in question #1) was false?
The second one. I love football, avid fan, and love watching matches with my boys. I am, however, a horrendous player. When I do play, I do not tell anyone I am Brazilian, so I don’t shame my country of birth.