Director's Message

Welcome! Thank you for your interest in the Transplant Nephrology Fellowship Program at Northwestern University and our Comprehensive Transplant Center.

Our program is accredited by the American Society of Transplantation (AST)/American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and offers comprehensive training at one of the nation’s leading transplant programs. We have also received ACGME accreditation, which will go into effect at the start of the 2026 academic year.

Northwestern performed its first kidney transplant in 1964 and have since performed over 7,900 kidney and/or pancreas transplants. In 2025, we performed 350 kidney transplants, ranking Northwestern #1 by volume in Illinois and #13 nationally. One of the feature traits of our kidney transplant program is our emphasis on living donors. We are the largest living donor kidney transplant program in Illinois and one of the largest programs in the country. Our team performed 76 living donor kidney transplants in 2025 and more than 450 over the last five years.

This volume includes diverse and complex transplant patient populations which provide our fellows with enormous learning opportunities. Our fellows get a comprehensive education in all aspects of transplant – deceased and living donor kidney transplants, multi-organ transplant, immunology, infectious diseases, pathology, policy, advocacy, quality improvement – just to name a few.

Our fellows have the opportunity to participate in our vast up-to-the-minute research initiatives and collaborations. In addition to being the largest kidney transplant program in Illinois, we are the second-largest NIH-funded transplant program in the U.S. and have more than 90 active clinical trials. The Comprehensive Transplant Center is involved in numerous multi-translational research projects in the fields of clinical research, outcomes, quality of life and basic science.   

Our program is located in downtown Chicago, which allows our fellows to experience all that this great city has to offer from dining and entertainment to cultural activities.

You will have the opportunity to work with and learn from leaders and trend-setters in the field, and be the forefront of quality clinical care, ground-breaking research and innovation in transplant! Join us in the Comprehensive Transplant Center and help us build a better future.