Tyisha is a strategic leader with more than 10 years of experience in graduate education - with success in supporting and mentoring students from recruitment through graduation. Her data-driven and forward-thinking approach has enabled successful collaboration with numerous colleagues throughout each university community she has served. She is passionate about empowering future leaders from diverse backgrounds that will advance science and higher education.
Tyisha most recently served as Associate Director of Admissions and Recruitment for the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. In 2010, she started her career as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Florida, where she created and validated mouse models of human diseases. It was in this phase of her career that she recognized a need for increased representation of women and racial & ethnic minorities in the research arena. With the goal of increasing diversity in individuals that hold terminal degrees, she left her research professor track and took a job with The UF Graduate School as Director of the Office of Graduate Diversity Initiatives.
In 2019 she was awarded the McKnight Presidential Award by the Florida Education Fund for her outstanding service and mentorship of Black and LatinX doctoral students. In 2020, she was recognized by the University of Florida for her outstanding and meritorious service. As she transitions to UVA as the new Assistant Dean for Graduate Education, she brings a broad range of knowledge and experience with which she will use as she works with students and administrators within the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to reach its mission of preparing UVA's next generation of citizen leaders who will solve some of the world's most urgent problems.
A two-time alumna of Jackson State University, Tyisha holds a B.S. and M.S. in Biology. She also holds a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience from Albany Medical College and an MBA from the University of Florida.