Dr. Max J Coppes received his medical degree from the University of Leiden Medical School in the Netherlands. He completed his Pediatric Residency at the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, Utrecht, the Netherlands and subsequently trained in pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He worked on his PhD (obtained from the University of Amsterdam) at the hospital for Sick Children, and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland. He obtained his MBA from the Haskayne School of Business in Calgary. Prior to Reno, he served as Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary (1995-2005), the Senior Vice President of the Center of Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC (2006-2012), and the president of the BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver, Canada (2012-2014). In Reno he has served as the Chief Medical & Academic Officer of Renown Health, Reno, NV (2014-2016) and the Chair of Pediatrics & Physician-in-Chief of Renown Children’s Hospital (2016-2022), before assuming his current role as Director of the William N. Pennington Cancer Institute in 2020.
His clinical area of expertise is childhood cancer, and he has served in multiple national and international leadership positions, including the Board of the International Society for Pediatric Oncology. His areas of research interest have included pediatric tumors (primarily but not exclusively pediatric renal tumors), antiemetic treatments, and bone marrow transplantation. He has been actively involved in laboratory, translational, clinical, and epidemiologic research and has over 110 peer-reviewed manuscripts and over 50 non-peer reviewed publications. Dr. Coppes is interested in helping to elucidate what can be learned from patterns derived from 'big data', including health record data, environmental data, genetic background, and socioeconomic factors.
Dr. Coppes has been married for 40 years to Arty Coppes (an executive coach, specialized in healthcare leadership) and they have 3 children and two grandchildren. He is fluent in 4 languages (English, Dutch, Spanish, and French) and loves traveling, classic music, and outdoor activities (road biking, golf, skiing).