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state legislator who has been on
MSM’s board for about 40 years.
Montgomery Rice also is thrilled
about the medical school opening new clinical sites in Fulton
County’s East Point and Princeton
Lakes communities in 2023.
MSM also is one of four institutions in the country to receive
a $25 million grant, the Cancer
Grand Challenges, awarded by the
National Cancer Institutes and the
United Kingdom’s equivalent of the
National Cancer Institute (Cancer
Research UK). MSM is the first
historically black medical school
to receive the grant, which will address racial inequalities in cancer
care and outcomes.
“We are doing research on the
genomics of cancer in pancreatic,
breast, colon and prostate cancer,” Montgomery Rice said. “The
uniqueness of this grant is that we
are enrolled in subjects from five
countries in Africa, the UK, and two
sites here in the United States.”
In 2024, MSM received another major grant, a $175 million
donation from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative. In
fact, it is the largest grant from a
single organization in the medical
school’s history.
Anthony “Tony” Welters is
founder, chairman and CEO of
CINQCARE Inc. and a 20-year MSM
board member. Welters, who met
Montgomery Rice when she was a
candidate for president and dean,
was the board’s chair for 10 years.
“She has grown into the job,” he
said. “She has vision, but she can
always execute. Most people with
vision can’t execute, in my experience. She’s relentless, will never
take no for an answer. Her commitment is built into her DNA, so it’s
not something that’s superficial.”
Very bright, very organized
Born and raised in Macon,
Montgomery Rice earned a bache-
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lor’s degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta
before realizing the engineer career
path wasn’t right for her. Then she
focused on medical school, getting
a degree from Harvard Medical
School in Boston.
While at Harvard, in 1986 Montgomery Rice met Ann Kiessling,
an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive
biology who was referred to her
about a reproductive endocrinology research project in her final year.
It was the first of what would be
several ambitious projects. “Valerie
was trying to figure out what she
would do with her [degree]— go
back to Macon and establish a
women’s health clinic? Or do a
residency in a women’s health
specialty, such as reproductive endocrinology?” said Kiessling, who
today is the director of the Bedford
Research Foundation in Bedford,
Massachusetts. “She was clearly
very bright, very organized and
determined to squeeze a research
project into her fourth-year medical
school schedule.”
“She carved out the time,
convinced the National Institutes
of Health to give her some purified
follicle stimulating hormone, and
with the help of another researcher in the lab— Dr. Dimitri Loutradis,
a visiting fellow in reproductive
medicine from the University of
Athens, Greece— Montgomery
Rice conducted a first-of-its-kind
proof of principle action of follicle
stimulating hormone on the mouse
ovary.”
Her career has included 34
years as an instructor or professor
at med schools in Detroit; Kansas
City; Troy, Michigan; and Nashville
before joining MSM. Since 1997
she’s also had roles as department
or med school leaders.
In her career, according to
her resume, she has won over
100 awards and honors, including being named an inductee of
the Horatio Alger Association of
Distinguished Americans Association in 2017. “The most earnest
thing about her is it is clear she
will deliver on what she’s decided
is important to do [and is] going to
do then,” Kiessling said.
50th Anniversary
This year MSM is celebrating
its 50th anniversary, with the bash
starting in January and including
a golf tournament and a cycling
event in August. “We have been
very excited about the opportunity to understand the impact the
school has had on the state of
Georgia from an economic perspective,” Montgomery Rice said.
“When you think about this, it’s
not something you can take for
granted.”
She shared with me facts from
a recent Tripp Umbach study that
confirms MSM’s impact on the
state. “One of the things that came
out of that study was in 2024,
Morehouse contributed $826 million to the U.S. economy, and $680
million of that was to the Georgia
economy,” Montgomery Rice said.
“One of the big take-homes was
that for every $1 Morehouse has
received, $20 is returned to the
Georgia economy. That comes in
the form of health cost savings,
the number of jobs we’ve produced but also the impact of our
alums and the NIH research we
do. All of that adds to the economy
of Georgia.”
Welters emphasizes that
Montgomery Rice is “tailor-made
to thrive with all these challenges”
MSM and other medical schools
face regularly. “These challenges are not for the faint at heart.
Trust me,” he said. “She’s the right
person at the right time to address
and lead.”
Everett Catts is a freelance writer who has previously worked as an editor for various Georgia
newspapers.
