HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Mary Beth Harler, M.D., started her medical career at Marshall University in 1989 with dreams of making a difference.

Harler, a native of Glen Dale, West Virginia, earned her Bachelor of Science from Wheeling University in Wheeling, West Virginia, before entering medical school at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.

Following completion of her medical degree in 1993, Harler trained as a general surgeon at Brown University’s Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where she was also a research fellow with a focus on the role of immune cells in wound healing. Harler currently serves as president of IGM Autoimmunity and Inflammation. Prior to joining IGM in 2021, she was senior vice president and head of immunology and fibrosis development at Bristol Myers Squibb after working in both medical affairs and clinical research at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (now part of Pfizer).

“Investing in the next generation of physicians and physician scientists is of keen interest to me,” Harler said. “I found that the quality of medical education that I received at Marshall’s School of Medicine allowed me to succeed in ways that I never envisioned, and I want to pay it forward to enable others to grow and make a difference in this world.”

The Harler-Perdoncin Scholarship, jointly named for Harler’s daughter, Madeline Perdoncin, a Marshall medical student in the class of 2024, is designated for an entering first-year student from Harler’s home county, Marshall County, West Virginia, and is renewable for up to three years. Second preference will be given as a one-time award to a medical student from Marshall County and third preference as a one-time award to a student from the adjacent West Virginia counties of Ohio or Wetzel.   

For more information or to make a gift to the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, please contact Linda Holmes, director of development and alumni affairs, at 304-691-1711 or holmes@marshall.edu. For news and information about the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, follow us on Twitter @MUSOMWV, like us on Facebook or visit jcesom.marshall.edu. 

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Media Contact: Sheanna Spence, Marshall Health/Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, 304-691-1639

Date Posted: Monday, December 19, 2022