Back In Session

Good morning!

For students of all ages, August represents back-to-school season. By now, all of our programs have held their first official day for the 2024 academic year except for the Bower School of Population Health and the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences. Those will start on Aug. 28. Effective that day, all of our more than 2,400 students across 43 degree programs and 19 certificate programs will be in full health sciences-learning mode. (Enrollment numbers for the schools not yet in session are still in flux so a final number isn’t yet available.)

Included in that number of degree programs across our six schools (School of Pharmacy data are not included) is a new one in the Graduate School: Doctor of Audiology. It was originally planned to start in 2020 but was delayed because of the pandemic. Also, the School of Nursing now offers a Nursing Education and Instruction Graduate Certificate. Conducted online, this certificate is for nurses with a BSN, MSN or Doctorate who are interested in teaching nursing sciences in the classroom or in being a nursing educator in a clinical environment.

Along with our degree-seeking students, I offer a warm welcome to 201 first-year residents and fellows to UMMC. This number includes four in the School of Health Related Professions, 180 in the School of Medicine, 12 in the School of Dentistry and five in the Graduate School. These advanced learners are immensely helpful as teachers, care providers and researchers and are vital to Medical Center operations.

Also, we welcome a host of new faculty each year. All through the year, with the biggest group starting in July, new faculty members join UMMC. Fifty-three new faculty were onboarded in three sessions last month, including two in SHRP, five in the School of Dentistry, three in the School of Nursing and 43 in the School of Medicine.

A few interesting data points about this group:

• Three of the new SOD faculty were previously residents of the school
• 30 of the new SOM faculty did their residency here
• Four students and post-docs transitioned to faculty this year
• One of the new faculty was a UMMC staff member
• Four are previous faculty members returning to UMMC
• 11 are new to UMMC and weren’t formerly students or residents
• 12 are international faculty members who represent nine countries 

Throughout the year, our new faculty members are featured weekly in eCV, but I’d like to go ahead and highlight the entire group below, along with the school each is joining.

• Luressie Jones-Lee, Assistant Professor, Medical Lab Sciences, SHRP
• Yin Wang, Assistant Professor, Medical Lab Sciences, SHRP
• Miles Sawaya, Assistant Professor, Advanced General Dentistry, SOD
• McKenzi Bynum, Instructor, Dental Hygiene, SOD
• Joanna Seo, Assistant Professor, Integrated Patient Care, SOD
• Emily Thompson, Assistant Professor, Pediatric Dentistry and Community Oral Health, SOD
• Saja Alramadhan, Assistant Professor, Oral Max. Surgery/Path, SOD
• Erin Norcross, Professor, Advanced Biomedical Education, SOM
• Casey Boothe, Assistant Professor, Advanced Biomedical Education, SOM
• Luiz Costa Lima, Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, SOM
• Wesley Dillard, Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, SOM
• Justin Mahaney, Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, SOM
• Richard Smith, Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, SOM
• Brigitte Martin, Assistant Professor, Cell & Molecular Biology, SOM
• Cleo Desmedt, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, SOM
• Andrew Garza, Instructor, Emergency Medicine, SOM
• Max Keeling, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, SOM
• Joseph Lake, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, SOM
• Janna Williams, Instructor, Emergency Medicine, SOM
• Preston Bell, Instructor, Medicine, SOM
• Robert S., Billingsley, Instructor, Medicine, SOM
• Reese Bulmash, Instructor, Medicine, SOM
• Kimberly Dobbs, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Laura Fincher, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Yanglin Guo, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Arsalan Hamid, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Raina Muthukumaru, Instructor, Medicine, SOM
• Meagan Robbins, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Carrie Wynn, Assistant Professor, Medicine, SOM
• Mariette Grace Young, Instructor, Medicine, SOM
• Yanis Amrani, Assistant Professor, Neurology, SOM
• Alexis Arias, Assistant Professor, Neurology, SOM
• Ahmad Mahadeen, Assistant Professor, Neurology, SOM
• Joaquin Hidalgo, Assistant Professor, Neurosurgery, SOM
• Zachary Smalley, Assistant Professor, Neurosurgery, SOM
• Breanna (Belle) Lao, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Omoloro Adeleke, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Elizabeth Adeyemi, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Maher Ajour, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Ahmad Tariq Hamed, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• India Hemphill, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Justine Ibale, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Rosalynn May, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Elisa Miguel-Qin, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Juan Velasquez, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Nathan Freeman, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, SOM
• Joshua Trull, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry, SOM
• Elijah Rogers, Instructor, Radiology, SOM
• Cristiane Santos, Instructor, Radiology, SOM
• Alyson Stacks, Assistant Professor, Radiology, SOM
• Lacey Gentry, Assistant Professor, Instruction, SON
• Lacy Hester, Instructor, Instruction, SON
• Lisa (Deloris) Slade, Assistant Professor, Instruction, SON

At our core, we are an academic institution. Every part of our organization can trace back to the education of health science professionals. We should all be proud of our role in Mississippi to bolster and support the state’s health system workforce. It’s an important and invaluable mission as, graduate by graduate, we construct A Healthier Mississippi.