Faculty and staff accomplishments
Faculty and staff at the John D. Bower School of Population Health continue to earn recognition for their leadership, innovation and dedication to advancing population health through education, research and service. Highlights from this semester include the following achievements:
Kim Brookins, Executive Assistant in the Dean’s Suite, received the 2025 GEM (Going the Extra Mile) Award, which honors SOPH staff who perform beyond expectations and demonstrate exceptional professionalism, service, and positivity in their daily work.
Dr. Julie Locher, Professor in the Department of Population Health Science, is leading ASPIRE: Advancing Success in Proposal & Investigator Research Excellence, a UMMC program designed to strengthen faculty success in grant development. Dr. Locher has two faculty cohorts launching in Fall 2025, with a student cohort planned for Spring 2026.
Dr. Jasmine Miller-Kleinhenz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Science, was recognized by the UMMC Cancer Center and Research Institute as the American Association for Cancer Research Minority Faculty Scholar Award in recognition of her pioneering contributions to addressing cancer health disparities.
Dr. Mauda Monger, Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Science, was selected for the 2025–2026 UMMC Group on Women in Medicine and Science (GWIMS) Leadership Development Program, a competitive program supporting professional growth and mentorship among emerging women leaders in academic medicine and science.
Dr. Yufeng Zheng, Associate Professor in the Department of Data Science, was named Mississippi’s first NVIDIA University Ambassador. Through this initiative, he has provided more than $30,000 in NVIDIA Fundamentals of Deep Learning course certificates at no cost to participants. Dr. Zheng also celebrated the publication of his third book, Deep Learning for Information Fusion and Pattern Recognition, co-authored with Erik Blasch.
Together, these accomplishments highlight the extraordinary talent and commitment of the SOPH community – each achievement contributing to the school’s mission to set the gold standard in population health.