Hall receives SEC award

Published on Monday, February 26, 2024

By: Andrea Wright Dilworth, awdilworth@umc.edu

Photos By: Joe Ellis/ UMMC Photography

Dr. Michael Hall, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, has been named the 2024 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award recipient for the University of Mississippi.

Hall is also chair of the Department of Medicine and Patrick H. Lehan Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine.

The SEC has used the award to recognize one faculty member from each of its 14 member institutions since 2012. The award program, established by the SEC’s presidents and chancellors, celebrates success in teaching, research and service. Award winners each receive a $5,000 honorarium from the SEC. One of the 14 winners will be chosen as the SEC Professor of the Year, voted on by the universities’ provosts. That award will be announced in March.

"Dr. Hall's contributions to medicine embody the University of Mississippi's commitment to advancing health care, improving lives and addressing the needs of our nation as well as those that significantly impact Mississippians,” said UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce. “As a researcher, his contributions are advancing a field deeply connected to the Medical Center's legacy of research expertise. As an educator, he has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to fellows, residents and students. I commend Dr. Hall for this achievement and thank him for his extraordinary leadership."

Hall, who earned his medical degree and completed his internal medicine residency at UMMC, also holds faculty appointments in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and the Department of Radiology. His professional interests include hypertension, heart failure, advanced cardiovascular imaging and obesity-induced cardiovascular and renal disease.

It is an honor to receive the award, Hall said.

“Teaching and mentoring students, residents, fellows and early career faculty is a great reward in academic medicine, which has been a very fulfilling career,” he said. “I am very thankful to all of our research team, my colleagues and my mentors for their tremendous support and for their contributions to our institution and improving the health of Mississippians.”

Dr. Scott Rodgers, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at UMMC, said Hall is highly deserving of the honor.

“He is a leader of the highest caliber on our campus, serving as chair of one of the largest departments in the School of Medicine while simultaneously maintaining his commitments to clinical care, education and research,” Rodgers said. “He is a true triple-threat, a physician-leader who can contribute meaningfully to all three mission areas of our medical center. And along with all of his accomplishments and exemplary leadership, he maintains an approachability that endears him to everyone in our UMMC family. Dr. Hall is one-of-a-kind, and I am so glad that he is being recognized with the SEC Faculty Achievement Award.” 

Hall has held several leadership roles, including director of clinical and population studies in the Mississippi Center for Clinical and Translational Research; associate program director of the Cardiology Fellowship Program; and cardiac imaging director for the Cardiovascular Service Line.

A fellow of both the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, Council on Hypertension, he holds editorial positions with a variety of professional journals and is the lead author or coauthor on more than 150 published research manuscripts, and a dozen book chapters.

With his father, Dr. John Hall, Arthur C. Guyton Professor and Chair, Department of Physiology and Biophysics at UMMC, he has coauthored the Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology, the world’s best-selling, highly influential volume on physiology, which has been described as a work that medical schools across the globe use to teach students how to become doctors. John Hall was named the SEC's 2014 Professor of the Year.

Hall has been recognized repeatedly for his achievements in research, including being an investigator on several active National Institutes of Health grants. Other honors include the 2023 Platinum Award for Research for $5 million-plus in extramural funding; 2019 Gold Award for Research for $1 million-plus in extramural funding, Office of Sponsored Programs; 2018 Silver Award for Research, Office of Sponsored Programs; 2018 Department of Medicine Exemplary Research Award; and 2015 Translational Research Award, Office of Research.

As an educator, he has mentored a multitude of fellows, residents and students over the course of his career and, in 2023, received the Trailblazer Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education at UMMC. In 2021, he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society, which recognizes high educational achievement and gifted teaching, along with a lasting commitment to professionalism, leadership, scholarship, research and community service.

“The SEC Faculty Achievement Awards provide an annual opportunity to recognize and encourage the work of outstanding faculty members on our campuses,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. “Although we honor 14 individuals for their contributions, we know they are representative of all SEC faculty.”