New faculty join UMMC academic ranks

Published on Monday, May 23, 2022

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

Dr. Parveen Athar

Dr. Parveen Athar, recently an associate professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, has joined the Medical Center faculty as a professor of neurology in the School of Medicine.

Athar received her medical degree in 1993 from the School of Medicine at UMMC, where she completed her residency in neurology. She also did a neurophysiology fellowship at UMMC; and mini-fellowships in epilepsy, at Duke University, and in neuroimaging, in Orlando, Florida.

Athar also received training in intraoperative monitoring at the University of Miami, Miami, Florida; and was trained in the Educational Scholars Fellowship Program, a combined program of the UT Medical School at Houston and the Baylor College of Medicine.

Before joining the UT Medical School faculty in 2006, Athar was a clinical instructor in neurology at UMMC for about a year and a visiting clinical assistant professor for more than six years.

Her administrative and hospital appointments include those at Scott Regional Hospital in Morton; Rankin Medical Center in Brandon; Central Mississippi Medical Center in Ridgeland; the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson; and in Houston, Texas: the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center; Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital; and the Quentin Mease/Smith General Neurology Clinic, Harris Health System.

Athar, who is a member of several professional organizations, has been certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; American Board of Clinical Neurophysiology; American Society of Neuroimaging MRI/CT; and American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine.

The past recipient of a variety of research grants, Athar is the co-author of about two dozen published abstracts or referred journal articles and has more than two dozen scholarly presentations to her credit.

Dr. Philip Turk

Dr. Philip Turk, recently an associate professor and director of biostatistics and data science at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, has joined the Medical Center faculty as professor and chair of the Department of Data Science in the John D. Bower School of Population Health.

Turk earned his MS in biology at Western Illinois University and his PhD in statistics at Montana State University.

Before he joined Atrium Health, he had, most recently, joint appointments as an assistant professor of statistics in the Department of Statistics and statistical consultant at the Davis College Experiment Station, West Virginia University; and as an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Statistics and statistical consultant at the Graybill Statistical Laboratory at Colorado State University.

Turk is the co-author of more than four dozen refereed publications. He has been part of research projects funded by more than 30 grants or other extramural funding, and has been lead presenter or co-presenter of more than five dozen posters and talks.

He is a member of the American Statistical Association, International Statistical Institute and the R Epidemics Consortium. His current areas of research specialization are Bayesian statistics, sampling, statistical computing, and advanced modeling and forecasting.