PHYSIOLOGY NEWS
SPRING 2024
FASILAT HASSAN AWARDED
QUIGLEY FELLOWSHIP
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY FACULTY Zhongjie Sun, MD, PhD, FAHA Professor and Chair Thomas A. Gerwin Chair of Excellence in Physiology Ioannis Dragatsis, PhD Professor Zheng Fan, PhD Professor Jonathan H. Jaggar, PhD Maury W. Bronstein Professor Salvatore Mancarella, PhD Associate Professor Helena Parfenova, PhD Professor Kaushik Parthasarathi, PhD Associate Professor Gadiparthi N. Rao, PhD George and Elizabeth Malloy Professor Radhakrishna Rao, PhD Professor Donald B. Thomason, PhD Professor Dean, College of Graduate Health Sciences Gabor J. Tigyi, MD, PhD Van Vleet Professor Junwang Xu, PhD Associate Professor Djamel Lebeche, PhD Professor Ki-Suk Kim, PhD Assisstant Professor Rahima Zennadi, PhD Associate Professor Rajeshwary Ghosh, PhD Assisstant Professor
The University of Tennessee is an EEO/AA/Title VI/Title IX/ Section 504/ADA/ADEA/V institution in the provision of its education and employment programs and services.
Graduate student Fasilat Hassan, who works in the lab of Dr. Djamel Lebeche, was awarded the J. Paul Quigley Memorial Fellowship. This annual award goes to the student in the Physiology Department with the highest GPA in the core courses of the Biomedical Sciences PhD program, who is working in the lab of a faculty member whose primary appointment is to Physiology. Fasilat’s GPA at the time of the award decision was a 4.0. In the Lebeche lab, the team that she works with studies molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways contributing to the pathophysiology of hypertrophy and heart failure. For more information about Fasilat’s research, contact her at dhassanf@uthsc.edu. For information about the Quigley Fellowship, visit https://www.uthsc.edu/physiology/education/awardsscholarships.php
CHRIS PITZER
RECOGNIZED FOR HIS SERVICE TO COUNCIL Chris Pitzer, a graduate student on the Molecular and Translational Physiology track of the Biomedical Sciences PhD program who works in the lab of Dr. Steven Alway, was recently profiled on the homepage of the UT Health Science Center’s website. This profile was to recognize Chris’s leadership service as President of the Graduate Student Executive Council, which is the UT Health Science Center campus’s student government. Chris’s role as the elected president of this council involves ensuring that the needs of the student population are heard regarding college and campus decisions. The department of Physiology is proud to have one of our own taking on such an important role for student advocacy, while balancing that with his own research, where he is “well on his way to developing into a strong, independent scientist,” in the words of his mentor. For more information about Chris and his work with the council, contact him at cpitzer1@uthsc.edu. For more information on the GSEC, visit https://uthsc.edu/gsec