The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff:
Eric Joseph Vallender, Ph.D.
Vallender
Dr. Eric Joseph Vallender, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an associate professor of psychiatry.
After receiving a B.S. in biochemistry with high distinction and the B.A. in anthropology in 2000 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Vallender earned a Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Chicago in 2006, for which he received the Committee Award for Outstanding Performance. He did his postdoctoral training in the Division of Neuroscience, New England Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School, from 2006-09.
Vallender was appointed an instructor in psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, in 2009 and became an assistant professor in 2012.
A member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Neuroscience, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence and the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics, Vallender serves as an editorial board member of “Brain Behavior and Evolution” and is an ad hoc reviewer for a number of journals. He has given more than 20 invited seminars or conference presentations nationwide and has authored or coauthored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and two book chapters.
His primary research interest is on comparative and evolutionary genetics associated with human brain, behavior and mental health disorders.
William Kirk Haney, M.D.
Haney
Dr. William Kirk Haney, a radiologist at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of radiology.
After serving in the military, Haney received the B.A. in biology from the University of Mississippi in 1987 and earned the M.D. at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, Memphis, in 1991. He did a radiology residency at UMMC from 1991-95.
Haney joined Magnolia Medical Center, Corinth, in 1995 before moving to North Mississippi Medical Center in 2001.