Our graduate programs will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve your future goals. Our alumni have careers in various public health arenas such as community health, international health and hospital administration. See where our alumni are today.
Cynthia Nunnally, MPH, CHES (’90)
Cynthia Nunnally, MPH, CHES, has served as the mayor-appointed Bureau Director for Population Health and Assurance for the Shelby County Health Department for 15 years.
Since graduation, this Memphis native has developed a very diverse public health background. Her career has touched a wide variety of public health issues, such as chronic disease prevention, substance abuse issues, community health assessment, infectious disease prevention, nutrition, family planning, and maternal/child health Her work experience includes community- based organizations, managed care, and both local and state level health departments. Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in the development of strategies to establish and maintain coalitions, leverage resources, strengthen community engagement, and to build solutions to public health issues.
Steve Dorman, PhD, MPH, CHES (’82)
Steve Dorman, PhD, MPH, CHES, became the eleventh president of Georgia College and State University, Georgia’s public liberal arts university, on September 1, 2012.
He has taught both undergraduate and graduate students and has served in academic leadership roles at Texas A&M University and the University of Florida. He served as a professor and dean of the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida from 2006 to 2012. Prior to that, he was chairman of the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University.
A published author, Dorman has written and researched topics ranging from dietary and sports supplements to training leaders for school health programs. He is an award-winning educator, a lifelong learner, and a leader among educators of innovative thinking and teaching.
Among others, he earned Eta Sigma Gamma’s Honor Award for his contributions to the health sciences profession, the American School Health Association’s William A. Howe Award, and was named National Health Educator of the Year by the American Association for Health Education.
Dorman earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and a master’s degree in public health and a doctorate of philosophy in health education from UT.
He and his wife, Jane, have three children, Steve Michael, Rachel Marie, and Timothy James.
Michael T. Hatcher, DrPH, MPH (’79)
After earning his undergraduate at UT in public health education, Michael Hatcher worked at the Cherokee Guidance Center in Morristown, Tennessee as a health educator. He returned to UT two years later and earned his MPH in community health education. He joined the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health in California, where he had completed his MPH internship, as a senior health educator. Four years later he joined the Texas Department of Health as a senior health educator and later became assistant director for public health promotion there. In 1989, he joined the Public Health Practice Program Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a health systems analyst. The CDC provided him the opportunity to return to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There he earned his DrPH in leadership health policy and administration. In 2003, he joined the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as chief for environmental medicine and education services within the Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine.
At local, state, and national levels, he has led health promotion and disease prevention planning, initiative development, and program implementation, resulting in measurable population-level health improvements. His experience also includes health system operation and performance improvement as well as health services research at the interface of population health and personal health care services.
His career has offered him many opportunities to participate in and undertake leadership roles in new state and national public health initiatives, including:
- Managing development and implementation of the 1990 Texas Health Promotion Disease Prevention Objectives;
- Responding to the capacity development needs identified in the 1988 Future of Public Health report published by the Institute of Medicine;
- Developing training and other tools to introduce managed care to public health departments;
- Developing and testing National Public Health Performance Standards;
- Articulating principles of community engagement and leading writing of the 1997 edition of Principles of Community Engagement and guiding design and participating in writing the 2011 Principles of Community Engagement: Second Edition; and
- Originating the ATSDR Clinical Preventive Environmental Health Services Initiative to improve primary care provider recognition, prevention, and treatment of illnesses resulting from exposures to hazardous substances in the environment.
Contact information: Michael.Hatcher@cdc.hhs.gov
Kenetra Hix, MPH (’09)
Kenetra Hix earned her MPH with a concentration in community health education and then enrolled at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, where she is currently a medical student.
While working toward her medical degree, Hix works with University Health Services. She is a team member of Student Health 101, which is a publication that educates healthcare students about healthy living.
In 2009, she had a summer preceptorship with the Department of Family Medicine. During the preceptorship, Hix used her MPH skills to create health education tools that were used to educate diabetic patients on how to successfully manage their diabetes.
“The UT MPH program contributed to my professional success in that it allows me to take advantage of health education opportunities with patients,” says Hix. “I am more aware of teachable moments.”
Contact information: khix@uthsc.edu
Anne C. Washburn, MPH (’92)
Anne Washburn earned her MPH at UT in 1992, where she pursued the community health education concentration. After graduating with her MPH, Washburn served as a cancer communications fellow at the National Cancer Institute Cancer Information Service in Bethesda, Maryland. After completing her fellowship, she secured a job with the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as the patient education coordinator where she worked until 2000. Subsequently, Washburn worked as the manager of medical relations at the TherapyEdge Biotech company in Durham, North Carolina, and then the communications manager at the National Cancer Institute, Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Bethesda). Since 2004, she has worked at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (Nashville) as the associate director of patient and community education and as the administrative director of the REACH for Survivorship program.
Anne’s words for prospective students:
“I remain grateful that the UT MPH program opened my eyes to the broad, diverse world of public health. This program contributed to my professional success by providing me with the skill set needed to make an impact in the lives of the populations I serve. In addition, this program taught me the importance of engaging the audience/community which I want to help. In each of the positions I have held over the past twenty years, I have utilized and leveraged the education and experience I gained via the MPH program. I could not be more appreciative!”
Stephanie Lynn Welch, MS-MPH, RD, LDN (’97)
Stephanie Welch is the vice president of operations for community schools with the Great Schools Partnership. She has been with the Great Schools Partnership since July 2013 and is responsible for implementing community schools in Knox County. She has worked in local and regional public health in East Tennessee for fifteen years, with a focus on community development, collaborative health improvement planning, nutrition, physical activity, and health inequities. Welch earned a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from the University of New Hampshire and a dual master’s in public health and nutrition from UT. She serves as a major in the United States Army Reserve and lives in the Island Home Park neighborhood of Knoxville with her dogs, Suttree, Chester, and Sprout.
Shambrekiá Wise, MPH (’10)
Shambrekiá Wise is a health insurance specialist for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Before relocating to the Washington, DC metro area, Wise focused on her studies in biological sciences at the University of Arkansas. She went directly into her master’s program at UT where she was awarded an academic fellowship and other scholarships to obtain her MPH degree with a concentration of health planning and administration in 2010.
For ten months, Wise worked on the health reform as a project officer in the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. While there, she monitored the development and financial activities of seven states to ensure they were not only making advancements towards establishing an exchange, but to also ensure they were complying with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). In August 2011, Wise took a position in the Division of Children’s Health Insurance Programs where she concentrated on aligning existing policies with the ACA as well as the unique position of a contracting officer representative.
Wise is now residing in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area where she is still employed with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as a health insurance specialist. Her current job focuses on helping manage cases stemming from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
As a Bill and Melinda Gates Scholar, she is focused on matriculating into a doctoral program that will further develop her policy knowledge within the next year.
Contact information: shambrekia.wise@cms.hhs.gov
Carlos A. Yunsan, MS-MPH (’02)
Carolos Yunsan is a native of Panama City, Panama, but has lived in Knoxville for most of his life. He received a bachelor’s degree in nutrition UT and enrolled in the dual MS-MPH program, with concentrations in public health nutrition and health planning and administration, respectively.
Following graduation, Yunsan worked with the East Region of the Tennessee Department of Health, starting out as as a tobacco control coordinator, then serving as health council coordinator for several counties, and later becoming director of health promotion. Additionally, he led the development and implementation of an interpreter assessment process, with the purpose of evaluating prospective language interpreters. In 2008, he became the MAPP coordinator for the Knox County Health Department. In that capacity, he was responsible for leading the implementation of a strategic community health planning process, later named Together! Healthy Knox. The effort, premised on community engagement for better health, continues to this day, led by a team of community partners.
In August 2010, Yunsan began legal studies at the UT College of Law. He is a graduate assistant at the Center for Health Policy and Service Research, working on strengthening linkages between the law and health disciplines. He is the coordinator of the Oak Ridge Evening Bar, vice president of the Latino Law Student Association, and a member of UT’s National Moot Court team.
Contact Information: cyunsan@utk.edu