Dr. Welsh is also Roy J. Carver Biomedical Research Chair in Internal Medicine and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Professor of Neurosurgery, Director of the University of Iowa Cystic Fibrosis Research Center, and Director of the University of Iowa Institute for Biomedical Discovery at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine of the University of Iowa. He earned his M.D. degree from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, where he completed his residency. He held clinical and research fellowships in pulmonary disease at the University of California, San Francisco, and did postgraduate research in physiology and cell biology at the University of Texas, Houston. He then returned to the rolling hills of Iowa, where he has restored the native tall grass prairie. Dr. Welsh has served as president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and president of the Association of American Physicians. His clinical activities are focused on pulmonary diseases.