Snyder-Warwick named Chair of Plastic Surgery Research Council’s 2025 Annual Meeting

Associate Professor of Surgery Alison Snyder-Warwick, MD, was elected to serve as Chair of the Plastic Surgery Research Council (PSRC) for the group’s 70^th Annual Meeting. Led by Snyder-Warwick, the PSRC Annual Meeting will be hosted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 2025. The announcement was made at the Council’s 67^th Annual Meeting, hosted June 8-12 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Snyder-Warwick, who is also Director of the Plastic Surgery Residency program, joins what is now a legacy of esteemed leaders from the Division of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery who have been elected by their peers to lead PSRC’s annual meeting.

“It’s all a bit surreal!” says Snyder-Warwick. “It is a tremendous honor to lead the Plastic Surgery Research Council into its next 70 years of innovation and research, and I am proud to bring the annual meeting back to Washington University.”

The Plastic Surgery Research Council is an inclusive organization focused on stimulating fundamental research in plastic surgery. Members of the Council represent those who excel in basic science, academic plastic surgery, those focusing in clinical and translational research, and those on the forefront of innovations and technology development.

The 2025 Annual Meeting marks the organization’s 70^th anniversary and its return to St. Louis after 29 years; the group’s 41^st Annual Meeting in St. Louis was chaired by Minot Packer Fryer Professor of Surgery, Susan Mackinnon, MD. Mackinnon shattered barriers as she was the first female plastic surgeon named as chair in the Council’s history. Snyder-Warwick will be the first female to chair the organization since 1997. In 2019, Shoenberg Professor and Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Justin Sacks, MD, MBA, FACS, chaired the PSRC’s 64^th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD.

Aligned directly with the Council’s mission, the ambitious scientists and surgeons within the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery are at the forefront of discovery in every subsection of plastic surgery, including peripheral nerve techniques, tissue engineering, lymphedema research, and much more. The team of 20 faculty researchers works diligently to bring their discoveries from lab bench to patient bedside.

Within the division, Snyder-Warwick performs facial paralysis, pediatric plastic and peripheral nerve surgeries. Her research interests focus on the neuromuscular junction and terminal Schwann cells. An innovator within the division, she performed the first corneal neurotization procedure alongside Washington University ophthalmologist Steven Couch, MD.

 “When it was announced that Dr. Snyder-Warwick was going to lead the society and chair the meeting in St. Louis, it was like a sound of a tsunami hitting the shoreline. The applause in the room was deafening, heartfelt and pure,” says Sacks, who attended the meeting and supported his colleague during the announcement.

“Back when Dr. Mackinnon was named chair of PSRC’s annual meeting, our division forged a leadership connection. Now, it is cemented for all time within the history of the PSRC,” says Sacks. “We cannot wait to support Dr. Snyder-Warwick for the next few years leading up to what will be the very greatest of celebrations for the Council, the city of St. Louis, the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and for our grand specialty of plastic surgery leading the way.”