Rate My Professor Wendell Yarbrough

Wendell G. Yarbrough, MD, MMHC, FACS, serves as the Thomas J. Dark Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. A two-time alumnus of UNC-Chapel Hill, he earned his MD from the UNC School of Medicine in 1989, graduating with honors and distinction. He completed an internship in general surgery (1989-1990), residency in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery (1990-1994), and fellowship in surgical oncology (1994-1996), all at UNC Hospitals. He later obtained a Master of Management in Health Care from Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management in 2010. His distinguished career spans multiple leading institutions: early faculty roles at UNC in otolaryngology, genetics, and biochemistry (1996-2003); associate and full professor positions at Vanderbilt University, including Ingram Professor of Cancer Research (2006-2012) and director of the Barry Baker Laboratory of Head and Neck Oncology; and at Yale School of Medicine as professor of otolaryngology and pathology (2012-2018), section chief of otolaryngology, director of the Head and Neck Disease Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital, and co-director of the Virus and Other Infection-associated Cancers Program at Yale Cancer Center. In 2018, he returned to UNC as department chair and established the Head and Neck Oncology Laboratory at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center with Dr. Natalia Issaeva.