Dr. Dransfield is Professor of Medicine and the William C. Bailey, MD Endowed Chair in Pulmonary Disease in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He also serves as the Medical Director of the UAB Lung Health Center, the University’s main center for clinical and translational pulmonary research, Medical Director of Pulmonary Rehabilitation, and is a staff physician at the Birmingham VA Medical Center. Dr. Dransfield’s main research interest is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with particular focus on its clinical epidemiology and phenotypic heterogeneity, the pathophysiology and impact of co-morbid cardiovascular disease, and the conduct of clinical trials. He is lead PI for the $11 million Department of Defense-sponsored Beta Blockers for the Prevention of COPD Exacerbations (βLOCK-COPD) study and served as a steering committee member for the NIH-sponsored COPD Clinical Research Network. He has also been a lead investigator for numerous other large observational and randomized NIH clinical trials including COPDGene, the Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcomes in COPD (SPIROMICS) study, and the Long Term Oxygen Treatment Trial. He is also UAB PI for each of the COPD trials to be conducted by the NHLBI Pulmonary Trials Consortium (PTC) and for the UAB site of the American Lung Association Airways Clinical Research Centers (ALA-ACRC). Dr. Dransfield has authored more than 120 publications and has been named as one of America’s Best Doctors since 2010.