Student Research Day 2020

The 64th Annual Student Research Day at Meharry Medical College will take place on March 11, 2020, at the Cal Turner Center for Student Education. More than 100 medical, dental, MSPH and Ph.D. students will present their insightful research on topics ranging from AIDS/HIV to mental health. Each of the student’s research posters will be judged accordingly. Students will be awarded at the conclusion of the day.

The James A. Pulliam Memorial Lecture and the Awards Ceremony will take place in the afternoon. Our keynote speaker will be Jan Michael Williams, Ph.D. The title of his lecture is “Perseverance in Academic Research: Understanding the Development of Renal Injury Associated with Prepubertal Obesity.”

Dr. Jan Williams is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson where he studies the mechanisms involved in the early development of renal disease associated with prepubertal obesity. He is also the Graduate Program Director for Experimental Therapeutics and Pharmacology and teaches Pharmacology to medical and dental students. Dr. Williams received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. He then attended the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta for his Ph.D. Program in Physiology, and completed his postdoctoral training at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Dr. Williams was then appointed as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Within a year, he accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at the University of Mississippi. In addition to his academic duties, Dr. Williams serves on institutional committees and is an active member of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Physiological Society (APS). He has served on peer review panels for AHA and is currently the Chair of the Clinical Review Committee for Vascular Endothelial Biology. He has served as a reviewer for several journals and is a member of the Editorial Board of American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology. Dr. Williams has mentored many underrepresented minority students at the high school and undergraduate level and serves as the Ph.D. dissertation advisor for several graduate students. He has received many awards for his accomplishments, and notable fellowships for his research including his current R01 from NIH-NIDDK.