UT Health Sciences News – A Fitting Send-Off: Hamilton Eye Institute’s Summer Symposium Caps Years of Student Discovery

For six years, T.J. Hollingsworth, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, and Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Biochemistry in the College of Medicine, has turned a single summer day into one of the most anticipated traditions at the Hamilton Eye Institute (HEI) at UT Health Sciences. As organizer of the annual HEI Summer Student Research Symposium, held recently in the Memphis campus' Freeman Auditorium, Dr. Hollingsworth has built something worth celebrating. This year may have been its final year, and it was a fitting capstone.

The symposium's future is uncertain because the Medical Student Research Fellowship (MSRF) program, which the event was designed to prepare students for, is being discontinued after this summer. The change stems from a revised medical school curriculum for the class entering in 2026. Previously, incoming first-year medical students began coursework in the second week of August, leaving them a summer off between their first and second years (the window during which MSRF research took place). This year's incoming first-years started July 20 and will no longer have that summer break, as the school moves to get students into clinical training earlier and give them more opportunities to explore career paths.

Read more on the UT Health Sciences News website.