Vice President and CMO · LifeGift · Fort Worth
Yolanda T. Becker, MD, FACS, FAST, CTBS is an abdominal transplant surgeon, physician executive, and community leader whose career spans more than three decades of clinical excellence, academic leadership, and transformative service in organ donation and transplantation.
Dr. Becker currently serves as Vice President and Chief Medical Officer and Director of Tissue Banking at LifeGift Organ Transplant Center, where she provides strategic medical leadership across organ and tissue donation, quality oversight, and system innovation. She is a Professor of Surgery and Medical Education at the Burnett School of Medicine at Texas Christian University. Dr. Becker was Professor of Surgery and Director of Adult and Pediatric Kidney Transplantation at the University of Chicago Medicine, where she led the kidney and pancreas programs until her retirement from clinical surgery in 2021.
Dr. Becker has served many roles in transplant governance, including as President of the OPTN Board of Directors, multiple OPTN policy and regulatory committees as well as society roles in AST, ASTS and AATB. She has actively participated in shaping U.S. organ allocation policy, transplant quality standards, and ethical frameworks for equitable organ access.
Dr. Becker’s leadership extends globally through her work with The Transplantation Society, where she currently serves as Co-Chair of Women in Transplantation. Her recent work focuses on mentorship of physician leaders, recovery surgeon credentialing and establishing tissue banking standards.
Deeply committed to community engagement, Dr. Becker serves on the boards of Enduring Hearts and Student Organ Donor Advocates (SODA) and has long supported patient advocacy, youth engagement, and public education around donation and transplant equity. She enjoys many hobbies including running half marathons, taking care of her many pets and helping her kids navigate their early career development.