Professor
Director, Division of Transplantation
Co-Director, UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute
Areas of Interest
Kidney transplantation, Liver transplantation, Living donation, Machine Perfusion, Health Services Research
Biography
Dr. Jacqueline Garonzik Wang has established herself as a foremost presence in transplantation research and best practices. Board-certified by the American Board of Surgery (ABS), the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), and the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (AHPBA), she specializes in liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation, as well as living kidney and liver donation. Dr. Garonzik Wang completed her medical degree at Emory University, general surgery residency at Johns Hopkins University, and abdominal transplant and hepatobiliary surgery fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.
Author of over 240 publications and a field leader in kidney transplantation outcome improvement, Dr. Garonzik Wang’s research focuses on identifying novel strategies to increase rates of deceased and living donor kidney transplantation. This includes, but is not limited to, the utilization of normothermic and hypothermic machine perfusion to preserve and assess donor kidneys, expansion of donor acceptance criteria, and leveraging modalities, such as kidney paired exchange and desensitization, to expand access to transplantation.
Passionate about maximizing the utilization of kidneys available for transplant on a national scale, she was instrumental in creating the Incompatible Live Donor Kidney Transplant (ILDKT) registry early in her career and developing and advocating for the national implementation of the Live Donor Champion Program, two examples of numerous initiatives that have had significant impact on the national transplant landscape.
As a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, from 2016-2021, she served Program Director of the Abdominal Transplant Surgery Fellowship, Director and Training and Education for the Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation (ERGOT), and Assistant Program Director for the General Surgery Residency. Due to her exceptional accomplishments, she was promoted to associate professor in just three years.
In her tenure at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she practiced from 2021-2025, Dr. Garonzik Wang served as the Surgical Director of the Kidney Transplantation Program and Core Investigator of the Wisconsin Surgical Outcomes Research Group (WISOR), among many other administrative and societal roles. As Director, she has pioneered the development and implementation of the Robotic Transplant Surgery Program, which launched in February 2025. In the clinical application of her research, Dr. Garonzik Wang has also led efforts to utilize normothermic machine perfusion to assess hard-to-place deceased donor kidneys and expand available kidneys for donation.
Honors and Awards
The Anthony L. Imbebo Resident Teaching Award, Johns Hopkins Hospital (2014)
Medical Student Teaching Award for Surgery Residents, Johns Hopkins Hospital (2014)
Emerging Women in Leadership Award, Office of Women in Science and Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital (2017)
National Institute of Health Loan Repayment Award for Clinical Research (2018)
Rothman Early Career Development Award, Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery (2018)
Alfred Blalock Research Award, Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery (2019)
Vanguard Prize, American Society of Transplant Surgeons (2020)
AWS Rising Star Award (2021)
Weikel Leadership Development Program Awardee (2022)
Layton F. Rikkers Chair Teaching Award (UW Surgical Residency) (2023)
Education
Medical School
Emory University
Graduate School
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Ph.D.
Residency
John Hopkins Hospital
General Surgery
Fellowship
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Research Fellowship, Transplant Surgery
Fellowship
Washington University
Abdominal Transplant Surgery
Contact
Campus Address
LHFOT 759
Phone
Academic Office: 205-934-7436