C. Richard (Rick) Boland, MD, AGAF, is a Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the UCSD School of Medicine. He is from upstate New York, USA, received a BA from Notre Dame and an MD from Yale Medical School. He trained in gastroenterology at UCSF, and had his first academic appointment there, working on glycoprotein biochemistry in colorectal cancer with Prof Young S. Kim. He has a career-long research interest in colon cancer, specifically focusing on the genetic causes of colon cancer and familial cancer syndromes.

Dr. Boland has been an active clinician, teacher, and mentor. Rick has been funded continuously by NIH since 1979, has served on multiple NIH Study Sections, and was the Chair of one for 3 years. He has published over 430 papers, has an H-Index of 113,(one paper in which he the first author has been cited over 5,000 times) and has written multiple invited chapters. He was elected into the AAP 2001. He was honored by the Collaborative Group of the Americas (Hereditary GI Cancer Group) with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, was president of the AGA from 2011-12. He was given the AGA Oncology Section Distinguished Mentor Award, the AGA Beaumont Prize, and the AGA Friedenwald Medal. Dr. Boland has mentored 101 fellows and students in the laboratory, several of whom have become Division Chiefs, Department Chairs and Deans. He is also active in several mentoring programs at this time, including the AGA Forward Program.