New faculty join UMMC academic ranks
Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.
Logan C. Brower
Logan C. Brower, recently a procedural nurse in interventional radiology at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor of nursing in the School of Nursing.
Brower, a graduate of the Associate Degree Nursing Program at the Grenada campus of Holmes Community College, earned her Master of Science in Nursing, Nursing Education and Instruction, in 2025 from UMMC.
She is a licensed RN with clinical nurse residency certification offered through Baptist Memorial’s nursing education program for new nurses. She is also seeking Certified Nurse Educator certification.
Brower also served as a staff nurse in the Medical Surgical Unit of Yalobusha General Hospital in Water Valley.
A 2023 Bower scholar, she is a member of the UMMC School of Nursing Chapter of the American Association of Men in Nursing.
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Dr. Julie L. Locher
Dr. Julie L. Locher, recently the director of the Grant Writing Intensive Training Program at the Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, has joined the Medical Center faculty as a professor of education in the John D. Bower School of Population Health.
Locher, professor emerita of medicine-gerontology, geriatrics and palliative care at UAB, recently served as an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington.
She earned a PhD in medical sociology in 1999 from UAB, where she also earned an MSPH in Health Policy and Outcomes in 2005. Locher has also completed a number of professional development courses and seminars, as well as training programs in clinical research, economic research, behavioral and social science research, nutrition and more.
She conducted research at UAB and in the Division of Geriatric Medicine, School of Medicine, at the University of Pittsburgh. At UAB, she also served as director or associate director for the Translational Nutrition and Aging Program, Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, and Public Policy and Aging Program.
Throughout her career, she has received numerous honors and awards for her accomplishments in research, teaching, mentorship and more.
A member of the Gerontological Society of America, Locher has served as a consultant, grant reviewer, content advisor and in other roles for such institutions as Brown University, Indiana University-Bloomington School of Public Health, Veteran’s Administration Rehabilitation Research and Development Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development and more.
Her service on professional committees, councils and more is extensive. She has served as an editorial board member or journal reviewer for dozens of professional journals. Her experience as an educator, mentor and lecturer is also extensive, as is her work as a principal investigator or co-investigator on NIH grant-supported research projects.
She is the co-author of more than 120 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and is the co-author of a dozen book chapters and a textbook.
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Dr. Amruta Panwala
Dr. Amruta Panwala, recently a hospitalist at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Ohio, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of medicine-hospital medicine in the School of Medicine.
Panwala earned her medical degree in 2013 from the Government Medical College in Surat, India, before doing residency training at the University of Connecticut Internal Medicine Program in Farmington. She was chief resident during her subsequent residency training in the Yale-Waterbury Internal Medicine Program in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Previously, as a trainee, she also worked at the New Civil Hospital in Surat, India; VA Providence Health Care, Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and CARE Hospitals in Surat. Before joining the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, she practiced hospital medicine for over four years at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
She has accumulated more than four years of research experience at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, and contributed to several scientific publications and poster/oral presentations. As a volunteer, she screened patients in a community-based medical camp organized in conjunction with the National Kidney Foundation in Newington, Connecticut.
Panwala is a member of the American College of Physicians, Society of General Internal Medicine and American College of Gastroenterology.