A new 15-member search committee has been named to help select the next dean of the Kansas University School of Medicine.

Edward Ellerbeck, chair of preventive medicine and public health at the KUMC medical school, will serve as the committee’s chairman.

Barbara Atkinson, KU Medical Center’s executive vice chancellor, and KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little will select the next dean, in consultation with the search committee. KU has also retained Janice Z. Kinney Associates to assist with the search.

The committee will begin meeting in the next two weeks, and hopes to have finalists selected by April, according to an email sent to KUMC faculty and staff from Atkinson and Gray-Little.

KUMC is looking for a new dean after Atkinson, who had been serving as both dean and executive vice chancellor, announced she would step down from those roles. She will stay on as dean until a new one is selected, and as executive vice chancellor until December 2013. A separate search for a new executive vice chancellor will take place later.

Other members of the committee are:

• Giulia Bonamino, KU associate dean for medical education and associate professor of family medicine.

• Douglas Burton, KU professor of orthopedic surgery and board member for KU Physicians.

• Gerald Carson, KU chairman of biochemistry and molecular biology and interim chairman of pharmacology, toxicology and therapeutics.

• Bill Hall, president, Hall Family Foundation.

• Jeffrey Holzbeierlein, KU professor of urology and board member for KU Physicians.

• Cliff Illig, co-founder and vice chairman, Cerner Corp.

• Parvesh Kumar, KU chairman of radiation oncology.

• Tammy Peterman, KU Hospital’s executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief nursing officer.

• Tiffany Schwasinger-Schmidt, co-chairwoman of KU’s Medical Student Association.

• Peter Smith, director of the medical school’s Institute for Neurological Disorders.

• Val Stella, KU university distinguished professor of pharmaceutical chemistry in the School of Pharmacy on KU’s Lawrence campus.

• Steven Stites, KU chairman of internal medicine.

• Debra Sullivan, chairwoman of dietetics and nutrition in KU’s School of Health Professions.

• Donna Sweet, professor of internal medicine at KU’s School of Medicine-Wichita, chairwoman of the Faculty Council at the School of Medicine, member of the KU Medical Alumni Association’s board of directors and member of the faculty assembly steering committee.