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Susan D. Emmett, M.D., MPH, (seated) with (from left) Keith P. West Jr., Dr.PH, MPH, Steven Webber, M.D., Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, and John L. Dornhoffer, M.D., FACS. Image by Bryan Clifton

UAMS Invests Susan D. Emmett, M.D., MPH, in Inaugural Thomas McGill Chair in Otolaryngology

March 24, 2025 | LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine invested Susan D. Emmett, M.D., MPH, an associate professor of otolaryngology and epidemiology and founding director of the UAMS Center for Hearing Health Access, in the Thomas McGill Chair in Otolaryngology during a March 18 ceremony. Emmett is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair.

“Leading the Center for Hearing Access has been the greatest honor of my career,” said Emmett. “Through our ambitious new plan, we plan on bringing all the innovations we’ve developed across the globe home to Arkansas so that this state can lead the way to transform access to care for rural America and beyond.”

Emmett is the only researcher in the world harnessing the combination of a practicing surgeon and public health-trained expert who studies the continuum from novel technologic device development for improved screening to large-scale randomized trials focusing on expanding access to specialty care.

“Dr. Emmett is world-renowned for her work on hearing loss and its consequences outside of simply hearing, and she is committed and impassioned in providing solutions for those who suffer from hearing impairment,” said Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, UAMS chancellor and CEO of UAMS Health. “She has a rich career that has extended across the globe, and we are confident that her contributions will only accelerate in her time at UAMS with the benefit of this endowment.”

The chair is named in honor of Thomas McGill. The McGill family’s relationship with the UAMS started when McGill’s mother was a patient under the care of James Suen, M.D., a world-renowned otolaryngologist and a distinguished professor at UAMS. In 1997, McGill and his siblings created the McGill Family Otolaryngology Research Endowment Fund in memory of their parents for head and neck cancer research and over the years donated nearly $5 million to the fund. In addition to the Thomas McGill Chair in Otolaryngology, the fund also created the Samuel McGill Otolaryngology Research Chair and the Josephine T. McGill Chair in Head and Neck Cancer Research. Thomas McGill passed away in March 2020.

“Endowed chairs are a very prestigious honor. They help us recruit and retain world-class clinicians, educators and scientists, and just as importantly, they support the vital work and vision of the faculty who hold them,” said Steven Webber, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine and UAMS executive vice chancellor.  “We are delighted today to celebrate the philanthropic spirit and incredible generosity of the McGill family for establishing the endowment that made this chair, along with two other chairs, possible. Likewise, it is a great pleasure to honor the outstanding colleague who will be the inaugural holder of this endowed chair.”

A chair is established with gifts of at least $1 million, which are invested and the interest proceeds used to support the educational, research and clinical activities of the chair holder. Those named to a chair are among the most highly regarded scientists, physicians and professors in their fields.

A native of Memphis, Emmett received her Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular biology and public policy from Princeton University and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs in 2005. She was awarded the Molecular Biology Senior Thesis Prize, an honor bestowed on the single Princeton senior who has demonstrated superior scholarship through the written thesis and oral defense before the faculty. She worked as an intern in the Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health during her summers at Princeton and as a health legislative aide for then-Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.D., for the year after graduation. In 2010, she received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke University. As a medical student at Duke, she was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Research Fellowship to complete a year of clinical research at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. At that time, she was the first-ever HHMI research fellow selected to perform global health research.

Emmett pursued postgraduate medical education at Johns Hopkins University so that she could simultaneously complete her otolaryngology residency and public health training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, including a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Center for Human Nutrition and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiologic and Statistical Methods. She completed clinical fellowship training in otology at the Fisch International Microsurgical Foundation in Luzerne, Switzerland, and joined the faculty at Duke University in 2017, where she held joint appointments in Head and Neck Surgery and Communication Sciences at the Duke Global Health Institute.

She joined UAMS in 2022 to launch the UAMS Center for Hearing Health Access. She also founded and directs two research networks: an international research network on hearing loss with collaborators from 28 countries called the Global Hearing Loss, Evaluation, Advocacy and Research (HEAR) Collaborative, and a U.S.-based research network called HEAR-USA. These collaboratives represent the only research networks dedicated to addressing hearing health access internationally and nationally, respectively.

Emmett is co-chair of Innovations in Service Delivery for the Lancet Commission on Global Hearing Loss and was one of five core consultants globally for the World Health Organization during the multiyear development of the first-ever World Report on Hearing. She also serves on the Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Minority Health.

Emmett has been elected to membership in four highly competitive honorific societies over the course of her career. She was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, the preeminent medical honor society nationally, in 2010. In 2015, she was elected to Delta Omega, the national public health honor society. Most notably, in 2024 she was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Emmett is the sixth otolaryngologist in history to be elected to this medical honor society, which inducts only the top 100 physician-scientists aged 50 and younger across all medical specialties annually. She was also elected to the American Clinical and Climatological Association in 2024, another highly prestigious society for physician scientists limited to an active membership of 250 physicians.

In 2017, Emmett was selected to be a TED Fellow, a program that supports changemakers across fields at pivotal points in their careers to realize their innovative visions. Through this program she delivered a TED talk in Arusha, Tanzania, that was published on TED.com and has received 1.3 million views to date. She is the first-ever otolaryngologist to become a TED Fellow.

“Dr. Emmett’s research is really amazing because it’s trying to improve access for health care by bringing together all the players — the stakeholders, physicians, audiologists, teachers — and develop an infrastructure that will be truly impactful for hearing health in the United States,” said John L. Dornhoffer, M.D., FACS, professor and chair of the UAMS Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. “Susan, you’re so deserving of this honor, and I’m just going to sit back and watch what you do — I’m convinced in a couple years Arkansas is going to be the epicenter of hearing health, and it’s because of you.”

UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,485 students, 915 medical residents and fellows, and seven dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 11,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.

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