Two new faculty hires at the University of Iowa demonstrate its continued dedication to exceptionalism.

Oct. 1 will mark the first day of work for two new faculty members hired by the UI from its Transformational Faculty Hiring Program. The program, which began in January 2022 and added one faculty member in 2023, is designed to find and hire “exceptional faculty leaders,” according to the UI’s release.

UI President Barbara Wilson has shared that the program has effectively brought quality educators and researchers to the university.

“The Transformational Faculty Hiring Program has been a great tool to help us foster excellence and innovation across our campus,” Wilson said in the release.

She said the program is helping to grow the UI’s research and educational capacities and strengthening its reputation as a whole.

The two faculty being added are Martin Grace, formerly of Temple University in Philadelphia, and Mark Burkard, who previously taught and performed research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Grace is a finance professor as well as a director and faculty chair of two different finance boards at the Tippie College of Business. His background is in risk management and insurance and the research thereof, Grace said.

“I went to law school, so I have law, economics, risk management, and analytics, and it turns out that the insurance industry cares about all of them,” Grace said.

Grace said he previously was involved in research on the regulation of insurance, with the conclusion at the time being that insurance was over-regulated. Consequently, he worked on pricing auto insurance.

Later, he worked on natural disasters and the causes and effects of government regulation in the event of a catastrophe.

“If you needed a gallon of water, you’ll pay $30 for it,” he said. “If you kept the price at $8 there would be no water because nobody would sell it. You need the market to work after disaster.”

Grace said a friend of his called him a year ago suggesting he pursue a position at the UI. He subsequently visited the campus in March and was hired mere weeks before classes began. Grace said, though, that the relocation was no trouble.

“They didn’t have to sell me on the university,” he said.

Grace said he is looking forward to beginning his work at the UI but could not yet share any details about what that work involves.

“The idea behind the hires like this is to do something novel, to create something unique for the University of Iowa,” Grace said.

Burkard is the second addition to the UI. Coming from UW-Madison, Burkard is coming on as director of the UI Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, he said.

At Madison, Burkard has spent 16 years as a medical oncologist researcher, focusing on breast cancer.

He said he performed research on breast cancer and how different people respond differently to varying types and treatments of breast cancers.

RELATED: First new hire of UI Transformational Faculty Hiring Program to start August 2023

He said there was an opportunity to interview for the cancer director position at the UI last year, and he received a callback and took the job. He took it to make a difference in cancer treatment, as the UI indicated it wanted to do more pertinent research for cancer patients.

Burkard developed an appreciation of working with individual patients and helping to create an efficient care environment during his time at UW-Madison.

“I started going to the clinic, and I really loved the patients,” he said. “I developed relationships. We need to make sure we support the excellent staff running these clinical trials.”

As department director, Burkard said his job will be to ensure the clinics are running efficiently and that patients are receiving the care they need. Additionally, his research will help in providing quality care to all Iowans.

“We need to reach the entire population of the state,” Burkard said. “We need to support other oncologists around the state, so everyone gets the best possible care.”

He said Iowa ranks second in the nation for new cancer incidences, meaning Iowans are getting cancer at an incredibly high rate and that a focal point of his role at the UI will be to address this problem.

“We’re working with the School of Public Health to try to reduce the incidence of cancer, provide screening, and find out the factors underlying that incidence and make Iowans healthy,” Burkard said.

Burkard said he is both “nervous and excited” about going into his role. People depend on him and his colleagues, and their job is to provide life-saving care.

“I can’t do it alone,” he said. “Most of my job is collaborating with the team.”