Dr. Hans Sollinger earned his M.D. from the University of Munich, Germany, in 1973, and his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1975. He came to the University of Wisconsin in 1975, where he finished a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Immunobiology Research Center. He completed his surgical residency at the University of Wisconsin from 1976-1980. In 1980 Dr. Sollinger joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin under the leadership of Dr. Folkert O. Belzer, and upon Dr. Belzer's retirement in 1995, Dr. Sollinger was named Chairman of the Division of Organ Transplantation at the University of Wisconsin, which he led until July 2009. He became the Folkert O. Belzer Professor of Surgery in 1996, and in addition, is currently Director of the University of Wisconsin Kidney Transplant Program.
Dr. Sollinger is a member of the American Surgical Association, The Transplantation Society, the Society of University Surgeons, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and the International Society for Organ Sharing. He is Past President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the International Society for Organ Sharing. He is on the editorial boards of 14 scientific journals. He was a member of the National Institutes of Health Surgery, Anesthesiology and Trauma Study Section from 1994-1997. In 2001 he was appointed by Tommy Thompson, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, to a four-year term as a member of the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation, during which time he served one year as Chair of the Committee.
In 2006, Dr. Sollinger was selected as a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. In 2009, he was awarded Honorary Membership, European Surgical Association. In 2010 he received the American Society of Transplantation Mentoring Award, and in 2011 he was awarded the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Francis Moore Excellence in Mentorship in Transplantation Surgery Award.
