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Who is Jeff Sands?
Researcher and Doctor



Jeff was born in Boston, MA. When he was little, he loved hearing about men going into space and about the US going to the moon in the 1960s. That started his interest in science. Plus, he always liked math. However, he found that he liked using math to solve problems more than just working with math formulas.

Experiments Are Better Than Math
When it came time to pick a college, Jeff chose Harvard College in his home town of Boston, MA. He chose this school because he felt that it would give him a really good over-all education. Not only would he learn more about English, history, and other subjects like that, but he would also get good classes in math and science.

After a couple years, Jeff started looking for a project he could do for his senior honor work. At first, he wanted to take a part of the kidney and figure out how to make a model of how it works using math. However, his teacher sent him to talk to a physiologist who studied the kidney at Harvard Medical School. That person let Jeff design and carry out his own experiments on the kidney for his project. Jeff found out that he really liked doing experiments and wanted to keep studying the physiology of the kidney. Jeff finished college in 1977 with a degree in applied math.

M.D. or Ph.D.?
Jeff chose to become a doctor based on some not-so-good advice. As he was trying to decide between going on for more school to get a degree to become a doctor (M.D.) or a researcher (Ph.D.), Jeff talked to his teachers. They told him that he should get an M.D. degree, because researchers with M.D. degrees had an easier time getting grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pay for their research. Of course, as it turns out, that is not true. However, Jeff took their advice and applied to medical school at Boston University School of Medicine.

Medical School
Once in medical school, Jeff studied internal medicine and then did a fellowship studying the kidneys so that he could get back to doing kidney physiology. He found that studying how the kidneys take the water out of the urine so it’s more concentrated was great for him. It combined everything he liked: applied math, making math models of the process, and interesting questions about physiology. 

After Dr. Sands graduated from Medical School in 1981, he moved to Chicago, IL, to the University of Chicago to do his final M.D. training in internal medicine. After 2 years there, he moved to Bethesda, MD, to work at NIH for more research training in kidney physiology. In 1988, he moved to Emory University in Atlanta, GA, to do research, teach, and treat patients.

Working as a Doctor at a Medical School
Currently, Dr. Sands is a Professor in two departments, the Department of Medicine (because of his patient work) and the Department of Physiology (because of his research work). He is also the Director of the Renal Division (renal means kidney) at Emory University.

His job involves doing research; teaching classes to students who want to do research or become doctors; taking care of patients in the hospital; and then being on committees and other jobs like that for his departments, the hospital, and the university.

For Fun
Dr. Sands likes to play tennis and bridge, watch sports, and do things with his kids.

He also helps out the science groups he belongs to (American Physiological Society and American Society for Nephrology). For APS, he has two jobs. Dr. Sands is in charge of the American Journal of Physiology: Renal Physiology and was elected by all of APS to be a member of the APS Council, which runs the Society.