Center of Excellence in Inflammation, Infectious Disease, and Immunity (CIIDI) member Tammy Ozment, DVM, PhD, has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Alumni Award from the Department of Biomedical Sciences graduate program. She was honored with a plaque at the Biomedical Science graduate banquet in December 2024. Students who completed their first year in the program were presented with a lab coat, student and faculty awards were conferred, and graduates were acknowledged during the event. In addition, Dr. Ozment gave a well-received speech describing the value of being flexible and prepared to pivot in life and research. Dr. Ozment said, “Being flexible with my goals allowed me to take advantage of emerging opportunities that didn’t particularly align with my plans. Initially, I planned to study inflammation in allergy, but the opportunity to study sepsis with Dr. David L. Williams became available. This transitioned me into studying sepsis in mice. When our funding agency, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), made it clear they were no longer interested in funding mouse work, I took the opportunity to utilize CIIDI’s burgeoning translational research program to study sepsis in our patient population. I am again pivoting into somewhat different areas of immunology research, focusing on innate immune training using natural products derived from yeast. We hypothesize that oral administration of fungal glucans will improve resistance to a variety of infections, particularly those that lead to sepsis.”
Dr. Ozment completed her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at the University of Tennessee and her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Biomedical Sciences at East Tennessee State University. While completing her PhD work, she was part of CIIDI Co-Director Dr. David L. Williams’s lab both as a student and as a postdoctoral researcher. Following her role as a postdoctoral researcher, she was a research assistant professor. Dr. Ozment is currently a tenured associate professor in the Department of Surgery at Quillen College of Medicine.
Please join us in extending congratulations to Dr. Ozment as the 2024 recipient of the BMS Outstanding Alumni Award.