James D. Ross, Ph.D. hails from Monmouth, Illinois where he grew up on the Ross family farm. He received his Bachelor of the Arts in Biology from Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. After two years as a Research Specialist at the University of Illinois College of Nursing's Medical/Surgical Nursing Department studying sex-mediated cardiac contractile function, he joined the UIC College of Medicine's Physiology and Biophysics doctoral training program. Dr. Ross was awarded an American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship for the study of purinergic regulated myocardial immune responses in sepsis in addition to work investigating novel tissue preservation techniques for organ storage and transport. Dr. Ross' doctoral thesis research resulted in a patent application for the use of immune modulating drugs in prevention and affirmative treatment of the hallmark cardiac dysfunction in sepsis and the systemic immune response syndrome.

After completing his doctorate, Dr. Ross transitioned to private industry where he served as the Senior Research Scientist for Maroon Biotech, INC and Avocet Polymer Technologies. In this position he led private contract and government-sponsored research in malignant hyperthermia, trauma and wound regeneration.

In the spring of 2012, Dr. Ross was selected as the Director of Trauma and Clinical Care Research for the 59th Medical Wing at the Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center and the Battlefield Health and Trauma Research Institute. As Director, he was responsible for a $50 million research directorate encompassing six major clinical and translational research programs covering the areas of En-Route Care, Vascular Injury, Regenerative Medicine/Reconstruction and Advanced Life Support.

As faculty at OHSU, Dr. Ross' long term aspirations are centered on expanding trauma and critical care research to better integrate military medical innovations into civilian practice. His research will focus on pre-hospital hemorrhage control and resuscitation, identification of therapeutic targets for modulation of the trauma-induced immune and inflammatory response, and multi-functional blood substitutes for use in austere medicine.