With generous gesture, Simino shores up title as UMMC’s top teacher
Dr. Jeannette Simino – “Jeannette” to her students – the first representative of the Medical Center’s newest school to claim the institution’s highest teaching honor, is an unusual study in excellence and humility.
“I think we need a recount,” she said under her breath as she beelined toward the podium to accept the 2026 Regions Bank TEACH Prize last week at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Simino, associate professor and chair of the Department of Data Science in the John D. Bower School of Population Health, was one of seven TEACH Prize finalists from each of UMMC’s schools and among two dozen accomplished educators inducted into the Nelson Order.
Named for the former Medical Center leader, the late Dr. Norman C. Nelson, the order is reserved for those who have “reached the pinnacle of the art and science of teaching” – the words of Dr. Scott Rodgers, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs; it’s a phrase that, by all accounts, fits the latest TEACH Prize honoree.
But, in the afterglow of congratulatory handshakes and hugs, Simino still had the look of a person invited to a party by someone who forgot to say, “Oh, by the way, you’re the guest of honor. And you get $10,000.” Which she gave away.
The check arrived courtesy of Regions Bank, represented by vice presidents Regina Fowler and Tamicalyn Foster, who presented the award to the Toward Educational Advancement in Care and Health winner; it’s a tradition that began in 2013.
After the ceremony, Simino asked that the prize be directed to benefit the Department of Data Science. She kept her plaque.
“This honor means everything to me since it is student-nominated,” she said later. “I never wanted to teach due to public speaking anxiety. But we have the kindest, most patient and brilliant students. They helped me get over my anxiety and improve my classes.
“They asked questions that I had never thought about. So, really, this teaching award belongs to them.”
During Thursday’s observance, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine; Dr. Natalie Gaughf, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs; and Rodgers presented the Nelson Order inductees – selected by students and their peers and recommended by each school’s dean.
That includes Dr. Thomas Dobbs, dean of the School of Population Health. If Simino found her fortune too good to be true, Dobbs did not.
“Dr. Simino is a phenomenal teacher, a phenomenal mentor,” Dobbs said. “Every year, her reviews from students are off-the-charts positive. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s an institutional asset for so many reasons.”
The former Missourian from the town of Arnold adores the St. Louis Cardinals and real-life birds and other animals – so much so that she thought she’d be a veterinarian. Then, she found out she’d have to put some of her patients to sleep. “I don’t have the heart for that,” she said.
“I decided to do something that didn’t involve blood or needles, just computers.”
Fortunately, she was born with a head for fleshless, bloodless numbers. She earned degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and pursued her master’s and a PhD at Florida State University “because I love college football, the Seminoles and [Coach] Bobby Bowden,” she said.
Education-wise, that’s not the half of it.
She was awarded a master’s in biostatistics from Case Western Reserve University, a post-doctoral fellowship in cardiovascular genetic epidemiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and a regents fellowship in molecular pathology at Texas A&M University School of Medicine.
Simino found her thrill in data science, a field that uses statistics, computer science and their kin to, as one authoritative source puts it, “solve real-world problems.”
For instance, Simino and her colleagues have applied data science to predict the probability of someone surviving to age 80 dementia-free.
In 2014, she joined UMMC Center for Biostatistics and Bioinformatics as an investigator with the Memory Impairment and Neurodegenerative Dementia (MIND) Center and lists its director, Dr. Thomas Mosley, as a favorite influence. She has also served on the faculty for the schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences.
Appointed interim chair of the Department of Data Science in January 2024, she became permanent chair in March of last year in the school founded in 2016.
“We may be the new kid on the block, but we make up for a lack of history with loads of passion,” Simino said. “Our faculty have been working tirelessly to build rigorous and respected programs from the ground up.
“I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my Data Science family and the culture that we built together.”
A wizard in the fields of genetic epidemiology and biostatistics, Simino, as an investigator, has analyzed Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study data as part of the Cross-Cohort Collaboration Consortium – enabling her “to work with people from all over the world, which I love,” she said.
Obviously, she has become a whiz as a teacher. “I believe I’m just honest with the students about things I’ve been through and which they are going through,” she said.
“They know they can come to us any time, and we’re very informal. Students don’t call me ‘Dr. Simino.’ It’s ‘Jeannette.’”
If she had one wish for her students when they graduate, it’s this: “To get really lucrative jobs and live a happy life,” she said.
“They believe in data for good – doing good for the world. Our students are great in class, and they are even better people.”
2026 Regions Nelson Order Inductees
*Indicates TEACH Prize finalist
Faculty are listed under the school that nominated them
School of Dentistry
*Dr. Harold Mark Livingston, professor and chair of advanced general dentistry
Dr. Leneise C. Lynn, professor and chair of endodontics
Dr. Bulem Yuzugullu Tutunculer, associate professor of care planning and restorative sciences
Kelsey S. Welch, assistant professor of dental hygiene
School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences
Dr. Douglas E. Vetter, associate professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery
*Dr. Jan Michael Williams, professor of pharmacology and toxicology, assistant dean of student affairs
School of Health Related Professions
Kayla C. Abraham, assistant professor of occupational therapy
*Dr. Susanna “Asher” Street Beam, professor of radiologic science
Dr. Joshua R. Jefferson Sr., assistant professor of medical laboratory science
Dr. Melanie H. Lauderdale, professor and chair of physical therapy
School of Medicine
Dr. Kristen J. Alston, associate professor of family medicine, assistant dean for society and medicine
Dr. Casey M. Boothe, assistant professor of advanced biomedical education
*Dr. David T. Brown, professor of cell and molecular biology
Dr. Amanda V. Clark, professor of medicine
Dr. Praise Matemavi, associate professor of surgery-transplant
Dr. Kimberly “Kim” N. Paduda, professor of pediatrics
School of Nursing
Dr. Alicia M. Ciarloni, assistant professor of nursing
Dr. Samuel D. Dickinson, assistant professor of nursing
Dr. Lori S. Duke, assistant professor of nursing
Mary “Melissa” M. McBride, assistant professor of nursing
*Dr. Carl H. Mangum II, associate professor of nursing
School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi
*Dr. Justin J. Sherman, associate professor of pharmacy practice
John D. Bower School of Population Health
*Dr. Jeannette Simino, associate professor and chair of data science