University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Dr. LouAnn Woodward announced Thursday she will retire in June after more than a decade at the helm of the state’s only academic medical center. 

Woodward, 62, serves as the medical center’s vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the UMMC School of Medicine. She became the first woman to lead the medical center and school when she was appointed in 2015.

Woodward’s current four-year contract will expire June 30.

University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce recommended Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs at UMMC, as the medical center’s next leader, Woodward wrote in a Thursday email to staff. 

Woodward said that the Institutions of Higher Learning’s Board of Trustees accepted Boyce’s recommendation Thursday.

“I have absolute confidence in Dr. Jones and our leadership team,” Woodward said. “He has played an integral role in our shared successes over the years and has advanced many of our strategic priorities. UMMC’s future is bright, and it will be in excellent hands with Dr. Jones at the helm.”

Woodward, a Carroll County native, was trained as an emergency room physician at UMMC after graduating from Mississippi State University. She is also a tenured professor in the academic center’s Department of Emergency Medicine, according to UMMC’s website. 

She joined the medical center’s administration in 2003, and previously served as associate vice chancellor for health affairs and vice dean of the UMMC School of Medicine before accepting her current role. 

Woodward has led the health system, which includes six health science schools and the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, through the COVID-19 pandemic, a major dispute with the state’s largest private insurer and a cyberattack that forced the medical center to close clinics across the state and cancel elective procedures for nine days.

Under her leadership, the medical center completed a major children’s hospital expansion, adding a seven-story tower adjacent to Children’s of Mississippi designed to expand neonatal and pediatric intensive care, surgery and imaging services.

She has also led the medical center’s charge to construct a new cancer center, which is expected to break ground this month. Officials consider this an important step in Mississippi’s quest to gain a national designation that could improve outcomes for patients in the state with one of the nation’s highest cancer mortality rates, according to hospital leaders.

Correction, 10/15/2026: This article has been updated to correct Dr. Alan Jones’ current title.