Vascular surgery, neonatal NPs, S/L pathologist join faculty

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

Melissa Culpepper, MSN

Melissa Culpepper, a vascular surgery nurse practitioner at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in nursing.

After receiving her BSN from UMMC in 2011, Culpepper served as a full-time registered nurse in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at UMMC and then as needed in the float pool Intensive Care Unit at UMMC, the Burn ICU at Central Mississippi Medical Center, the Cardiovascular Recovery Unit at CMMC and the Geriatric Psychiatric Unit at St. Dominic Behavioral Health from 2011-16. She then obtained her MSN adult gerontology primary care nurse practitioner certification in 2016 and her post-MSN family nurse practitioner certification in 2018 at UMMC. She has served as a full-time vascular surgery nurse practitioner at the Medical Center since 2016.

A Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society inductee, Culpepper is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the Society for Vascular Nursing, the Mississippi Association of Nurse Practitioners and the Mississippi Nurses Association.

Alisia Hankins, DNP

Dr. Alisia Hankins, a neonatal nurse practitioner at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in nursing in the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program.

After receiving her BS in biology from Tougaloo College in 2010, Hankins earned her BSN in 2011 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She served as a registered nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at LeBonheur Children’s Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, and as a charge nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Nashville, Tennessee. She obtained her MSN-neonatal nurse practitioner from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2014.

Hankins came to UMMC in 2014 and has served as a neonatal nurse practitioner in the unit since 2015. She has also served stints as a locum tenens neonatal nurse practitioner at Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters, Norfolk, Virginia, and at Children’s Specialty Group, Norfolk. She earned her DNP at UMMC last year.

Hankins is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Academy of Neonatal Nurses, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Neonatal Nurses.

Paige Griffin Sanford, MS

Paige Griffin Sanford, a speech language pathologist clinical fellow, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in otolaryngology and communicative sciences.

After receiving her BS in speech and hearing sciences from Delta State University in 2018, Sanford earned her MS in communicative disorders at Jackson State University in 2020. She gained experience as a graduate student clinician at the Global Connection Learning Center in Jackson; at the Central Mississippi Speech, Language, and Hearing Clinic in Jackson; at the Outpatient Cancer Institute, Outpatient Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic and Adult Acute Care setting at UMMC; at Beyond Therapy for Kids in Ridgeland; and at a skilled nursing facility in Jackson.

Sanford is an active member of the Mississippi Speech Language and Hearing Association. As a student, she served as president of the JSU graduate National Student Speech Language Hearing Association chapter and was a member of the Mississippi Speech Language Hearing Association, serving as an NSSLHA/MSLHA liaison.