Officials appointed a professor of emergency medicine to serve as the University’s COVID-19 coordinator for the upcoming academic year.

Ray Lucas, an associate professor of emergency medicine in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, will serve as the University’s COVID-19 coordinator, University President Thomas LeBlanc announced in an email Friday. LeBlanc said Lucas will work as a “central point of contact” for COVID-19 related issues, and will report to Chief Financial Officer Mark Diaz to advise officials on COVID-19 testing, vaccine distribution and responses to new developments in the pandemic.

“His work will rely on the collaboration of the many faculty and staff who have supported our health and safety since the start of the pandemic, including from the Milken Institute School of Public Health, School of Nursing, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medical Faculty Associates, Colonial Health Center and Safety and Facilities,” LeBlanc said in the email.

Officials announced in April that students must be fully vaccinated before returning to campus this fall and have maintained that the fall semester will be held in person to the “fullest extent possible.”

“While we are still managing the pandemic, we are moving closer to our ‘new normal,’ expanding the on-campus population and transitioning out of the previous year’s emergency response phase,” LeBlanc said in the email.