Dr. Tamera Hughes seeks to address healthcare disparities affecting medically vulnerable and underserved communities in pharmacy practice. She is motivated by more than ten years of experience in various scholarly endeavors that began while serving as an undergraduate researcher in the Jackson Heart Study. This experience led Dr. Hughes to pursue a dual Pharm.D/Ph.D at Mercer University College of Pharmacy. As a postdoc at UNC, Dr. Hughes works on a CDC-funded grant that integrates pharmacists into a new collaborative care model to deprescribe opioids and benzodiazepines in older adults. She also serves as a practice transformation coach with Flip the Pharmacy, a new pharmacy-practice initiative focused on the enhanced delivery of community pharmacy healthcare services. Dr. Hughes will be completing a 2-year fellowship in the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity where she intends to establish her independence in pharmaceutical health services research by contributing new knowledge that improves health care access, delivery, utilization, and quality in the community pharmacy setting.

Dr. Hughes is a 2021 AcademyHealth Diversity Scholar.