Cardio-renal postdoc, internal med resident join UMMC faculty

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

Bhavisha A. Bakrania, Ph.D.

Dr. Bhavisha A. Bakrania, a recent postdoctoral research fellow at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in physiology.

After receiving her Bachelor of Health Science in 2010 from Griffith University-Gold Coast, QLD, Australia, Bakrania earned her Master of Medical Research in 2011 and her Doctor of Philosophy in 2015 at the Heart Foundation Research Center, Griffith University. She also had stints as a visiting Ph.D. student at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia; at the University of Vienna, Austria; and at UMMC. She was a postdoctoral research fellow in UMMC’s Cardiovascular-Renal Research Center from 2015-18.

Recipient of numerous awards, including the 2017 Postdoctoral Research Distinction Award from the American Physiological Society Water Electrolyte Homeostasis Section and the 2018 Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the American Heart Association, Bakrania participates in research projects with national and international collaborators from Austria, Australia and Germany. An active member of the American Heart Association, the American Physiological Society and the American Association of Anatomists, she serves as a reviewer for the International Journal of Cardiology and Scientific Reports.

The author or coauthor of 11 articles in peer-reviewed professional publications and 17 abstracts, Bakrania has given eight oral presentations to national and international audiences. She is principle investigator of an American Heart Association-funded project, “Soluble Guanylyl Cyclase as a Therapeutic Target for the Treatment of Preeclampsia.”

George Willis Bartley III, M.D.

Dr. George Willis Bartley III, a recent internal medicine resident at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of medicine.

After receiving his B.S. in biology magna cum laude from Texas Southern University in 2010, Bartley earned his M.D. in 2014 at UMMC, where he had residency training the Department of Internal Medicine from 2015-18.

A volunteer with the Jackson Free Clinic, Bartley has led or participated in four scientific abstracts or projects at UMMC.