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Experienced dental hygienist, physiology assistant professor join UMMC faculty

Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.

Brittany Rogel, B.S.

Brittany Rogel, an experienced dental hygienist, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in dental hygiene in the School of Dentistry.

A 2011 graduate of UMMC’s Dental Hygiene Program in the School of Health Related Professions, Rogel served as a dental hygienist for Dr. Carmen Adcock n Natchez from 2011-17. She is the 2011 recipient of the Colgate Community Award at UMMC.

 

Joshua S. Speed, Ph.D.

Dr. Joshua S. Speed, an instructor in nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics.

After receiving his B.S. in chemistry from Belhaven College in 2005, Speed earned his Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics at UMMC in 2011. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship in the Section of Experimental Medicine at Georgia Regents University, Augusta, from 2011-13 and in cardio-renal physiology and medicine at UAB from 2014-15. He joined the UAB faculty in 2015.

An active member of the American Physiological Society, the American Heart Association and the American Society of Nephrology, Speed is funded by an R00 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. He is the author or coauthor of 31 articles in peer-reviewed professional publications and more than 30 abstracts.

Speed’s research interests include the pathophysiology associated with a high salt diet, the importance of endothelin-1 to promote salt homeostasis and maintain normal blood pressure, and the possibility that increases in salt intake can promote the development of obesity.