Department of Surgery Leadership

Chair, MUSC Department of Surgery 

Vice Chair of Finance and Administration

As deputy director of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, William Hawkins, M.D., focuses on strengthening translational research and increasing clinical trials across South Carolina.

With a longstanding commitment to leadership, patient care, education and research, Hawkins has expertise in investigating pancreatic cancer. He is also a professor in the Department of Surgery at MUSC and in the Division of Surgical Oncology.

Vice Chair of Education

Jean Marie Ruddy, M.D., is a fellowship trained vascular surgeon and has clinical interests in lower extremity venous insufficiency and atherosclerotic disease of the abdominal aorta, carotid artery, and extremity vessels. She serves as Vice Chair of Research in the MUSC Department of Surgery, and dedicates time to scientific research with particular interest in hypertensive vascular remodeling and infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Heather Evans, M.D., MS, is a Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair of Veterans Affairs in the Department of Surgery. She serves as the Chief of Surgery at the Ralph H Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Evans is a general surgeon who specializes in minimally invasive hernia (rupture) surgery. She has performed laparoscopic inguinal hernia repairs (TEP) since 2009 and now routinely performs robotic-assisted laparoscopic repairs for groin, umbilical and ventral hernias.

Dr. Evans earned her medical degree from the University of Rochester and completed her general surgery residency at the University of Virginia. She attended UW to finish her training in surgical critical care and trauma at Harborview Medical Center.

Surgical Oncologist and Program Director

Sharee Wright, M.D. is  a vascular surgeon who practices all aspects of vascular and endovascular surgery. She specialized in diabetic limb salvage, aortoiliac disease, aortic aneurysms, and carotid disease. Her leadership roles include serving the department as Vice Chair of Healthcare Disparities Education and Cultural Dexterity and the College of Medicine as the Senior Associate Dean, Pathways.

Andrea M. Abbott, M.D., MSCR is a board-certified surgical oncologist who specializes in the treatment of breast cancer, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma. Her clinical interests are breast cancer, breast cancer during pregnancy, Hidden Scar surgery, skin and nipple-sparing mastectomy, breast conserving surgery, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, minimally invasive lymph node dissection, retroperitoneal sarcoma, and extremity soft tissue tumors.

Dr. Abbott obtained her medical degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and completed her general surgery residency at the University of Minnesota. She also obtained a Master's degree in clinical research during her residency from the University of Minnesota. She completed her surgical oncology fellowship at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

In addition to her surgical practice, Dr. Abbott is involved in clinical research and evaluating ways to improve information delivery to patients in order to enhance the patient-physician relationship and decision-making process. She is also working on ways to reduce opioid addiction after cancer surgery. She is Hidden Scar certified and uses this approach to improve cosmetic outcomes after breast cancer surgery without compromising cancer care. She is committed to finding a way for each patient to receive the best possible cancer care while honoring each patient's individual wishes and goals for his or her care.

Nationally recognized for her leadership, Dr. Devi was the inaugural director of the Duke: North Carolina Central University Bridge office at the Duke Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) and has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Clinical and Translational Sciences (ACTS). She is currently a Board Member of the International Consortium for Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC-IC). In 2025, ACTS honored her with the Addressing Health Equity through Partnership and Innovation Award.

Her research spans programmed cell death, functional genomics, tumor immunology with a translational focus across oncology and surgical sciences. With continuous federal funding, philanthropic support, and extensive international collaborations across Europe, Africa, and Asia, she has built highly productive partnerships with clinicians, cancer biologists, engineers, computational scientists, population health experts, behavioral scientists, and community stakeholders. These multidisciplinary collaborations foster population-conscious, bidirectional engagement projects rooted in a “bedside to bench to curbside and back” cyclical framework that directly improves health outcomes.