UTHSC News


PhD Graduate’s Work Could Alter Stroke Treatment Paradigm

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Dr. Nicole Schumacher poses with her family for a professional photo outside with palm trees in the background.

Nicole Schumacher began working at 14, when she started helping her dad with his eBay side business of selling electronic components from their garage. At 18, the California native worked for Best Buy and had no plans for college. Today, Dr. Schumacher is doing research on glucose levels in stroke patients, especially in the very early stage of the stroke called… Read More


Life, Amplified

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An audiology student looking into a young patient's ear

In the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, care, learning, and community come together one patient at a time. On a recent morning inside the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Audiology and Speech Pathology (ASP) clinic in downtown Knoxville, Rachel Brock sat for a routine appointment she has experienced dozens of times before. A clinician adjusted the settings on her… Read More


Seven UT Health Sciences Physicians Named to Inaugural Memphis Medical Society Hall of Fame

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When the Memphis Medical Society named its inaugural Hall of Fame class recently, seven of the 10 honorees could trace their training, faculty careers, or both to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences. For 150 years, the Memphis Medical Society has stood alongside the physicians who built medicine in the city. The Hall of Fame… Read More


UT Health Sciences Team Earns 4 Statewide Communications Awards

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The four awards displayed on a table

The University of Tennessee Health Sciences Office of Communications and Marketing earned four awards, including two top honors, at the 2026 Tennessee College Public Relations Association (TCPRA) conference. The annual event, held May 20–22 in Chattanooga, brought together communicators from public and private colleges and universities across the state. This year’s competition drew a record-breaking… Read More


Nurturing Beginnings: Dr. Alicia Barnes and Team Are Helping Create Healthier Communities for Children

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Dr. Alicia Barnes stands in a green dress indoors with green foliage in the foreground and a research poster in the background.

Memphis wasn’t on Alicia Barnes’ bingo card, but she saw an alignment she couldn’t ignore. The physician arrived three years ago, answering a listserv post from a colleague she had first met as a medical student at a national community psychiatry conference. She wasn’t actively looking. Yet when Altha Stewart, MD, posted about a leadership… Read More


Innovation Developed by UT Health Sciences Research Program Passes Landmark Trial for Cardiac Amyloidosis

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Portrait of Dr. Jon Wall sitting in a lab in front of shelves containing scientific instruments and materials

A new diagnostic tool developed at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences may soon make it significantly easier for physicians to detect cardiac amyloidosis, a progressive and frequently underdiagnosed disease caused by abnormal protein deposits in the heart. The tool is a novel imaging technology, a radioactive molecule that, when injected into a patient and… Read More


Brain Chemical Could Hold Key to Helping Veterans Escape Cycle of Trauma and Alcohol

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Headshot of Dr. Bryan Cruz

Why do people engage in compulsive behaviors? It’s a question Bryan Cruz, PhD, has been turning over since his undergraduate days, and one that became impossible to set aside as he watched people close to him struggle with compulsive and addictive behaviors that didn’t fit neatly into simple explanations. What others might attribute to personality… Read More


A Joyous Day: 2026 Spring Commencement Celebrates New Healthcare Professionals for Tennessee and Beyond

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Markela Albright could not miss her family in the crowded lobby of Memphis’ Cannon Center for the Performing Arts Monday morning after the first of three UT Health Sciences commencement ceremonies. They were the large group waving fans emblazoned with her photo complete with a doctoral tam and tassel. Albright, now Dr. Albright, had just… Read More