Clifton (Cliff) Gooch, MD, professor and chair of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Neurology, was recently appointed to the national ALS Association Board of Trustees.  He is one of four new members of the 25-member national board.

The Association is the world’s largest private funder of research for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

A leader in the ALS community, Dr. Gooch developed his interest in ALS at the beginning of his neurology training at Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.  He has engaged in ALS research, clinical care, and administration throughout his career.

He began his career as a junior faculty member with Baylor’s ALS Center in the early 1990s, then moved to Columbia University in New York, NY, in 1999, where he was part of the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center and the Columbia Motor Neuron Research Center. Since 2008, he has led the Department of Neurology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. The university has one of the largest ALS clinical care and clinical research centers in the Southeast.

Dr. Gooch has held numerous leadership positions at USF, including establishing and directing the USF Neuroscience Collaborative for interdisciplinary research and founding the USF ALS Center. During his tenure, the Neurology Department more than tripled in size, greatly expanded its research portfolio, and now conducts more than 100 clinical trials a year.

In addition to his national leadership position as president-elect of the Association of University Professors of Neurology, Dr. Gooch serves as treasurer of the American Neurological Association (ANA) Board of Directors. He is a fellow of both the American Academy of Neurology and the ANA, and highly sought as a speaker by many organizations across the country and internationally.