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Family, community medicine specialist; sleep med fellow join UMMC faculty

 

Matthew C. Morris, Ph.D.

Dr. Matthew C. Morris has joined the Medical Center faculty as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. He was previously an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Meharry Medical College.

Morris received his B.A. in psychology in 2002 from Amherst College, Massachusetts. He then completed his M.S. in 2006 and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 2011 at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. He remained in Nashville as a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Meharry Medical College from 2011-13 before joining the Meharry faculty as an assistant professor in 2013. From 2013-17 he served as a clinical psychologist in the Meharry Family Medicine Clinic and had an adjunct appointment in the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University. He was promoted to associate professor at Meharry in 2017.

Morris has served as principal investigator for a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and is co-principal investigator for a research project funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. He was previously funded through NIMH as principal investigator of a National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship.

Morris has authored 31 articles in peer-reviewed journals, five book chapters and seven abstracts and has contributed to more than 40 scientific presentations at local and national conferences. He serves on the editorial board of Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Morris has served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Support of Competitive Research (SCORE) Program of the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, the Office of Justice Programs of the National Institute of Justice, and for 28 peer-reviewed journals. He received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2016.

 

Minal P. Patel, M.B.B.S.

Dr. Minal P. Patel, recently a sleep medicine fellow at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of pediatrics.

After receiving her M.B.B.S. from Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Medical College, Gujarat, India, in 2005 and having internship training there from 2005-06, Patel came to the U.S. in 2010 and had a pediatrics residency at UMMC from 2013-16 and served as a pediatric hospitalist and an assistant professor in intermediate care nursery and newborn nursery at UMMC from 2016-18 before starting her sleep medicine fellowship in 2018.

An active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Patel has participated in a number of research projects, most recently involving necrotizing enterocolitis and intestinal atresia in neonate with gastroschisis and congenital intrahepatic portosystemic shunts.