Kakra Hughes is a Professor of Surgery with Tenure and Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at Howard University and Hospital. He has served in numerous leadership roles at Howard including President of the Medical Staff and Chairman of the Medical Executive Committee, and currently serves on the Appointment, Promotions and Tenure Committee for the medical school and for several departments. A board-certified, fellowship-trained vascular surgeon, his clinical interests span the entire spectrum of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. His research interests center on sociodemographic disparities in amputation and revascularization.

Kakra serves as assistant editor for the Journal of Vascular Surgery, associate editor for Annals of Vascular Surgery, a distinguished fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery and an associate examiner for the Vascular Surgery Certifying Examination of the American Board of Surgery. He previously served as a section editor for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (where he remains on the editorial board) and was also previously an editorial board member for the Journal of Endovascular Therapy.

Kakra obtained a BS (Summa Cum Laude) from Central State University, an MD from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, an MS in Clinical and Translational Research from Georgetown University and a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Maryland. His surgical residency was completed at Los Angeles County’s Martin Luther King, Jr./Charles Drew University Program followed by a Vascular Surgery Residency at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Endovascular Surgery Fellowship at the Arizona Heart Institute.