UT Regents name Julie V. Philley, MD, as next president of UT Tyler

AUSTIN, TEXAS - Today,the University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously to name Julie V. Philley, MD, the next president of the University of Texas at Tyler. Philley currently serves as the university’s executive vice president for health affairs and vice provost and is a board-certified physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine.

“Dr. Philley is a highly respected health, academic, and community leader in Tyler. She is an East Texas native with a deep understanding of our region and its needs, and she played a front-line role in helping build UT Tyler’s health enterprise to what it is today,” said UT Board of Regents Chairman Kevin P. Eltife. “She has the trust and admiration of individuals within the university and throughout Tyler.  I’ve witnessed her impact over the past twelve years, and we are confident she is ready to grow UT Tyler as a premier academic and health institution.”

Philley will begin her appointment on June 1, 2024, succeeding Kirk A. Calhoun, MD, following his retirement on May 31. Philley was unanimously selected as a finalist for the UTT presidency by the UT System Board of Regents in March.  A special committee was appointed by Eltife to evaluate Philley, and that committee, chaired by UT System Chancellor James B. Milliken, met on April 24 and recommended her to the Board of Regents.

“Dr. Philley received numerous accolades from the committee, with a special emphasis on her deep knowledge across the board in academic, clinical, administrative and operational matters, along with a track record of working collaboratively with many individuals to make significant advancements for UT Tyler,” Milliken said. “I am grateful to the committee for its enthusiastic recommendation.”

Philley played an instrumental role in launching the UT Tyler School of Medicine, the UT System’s seventh medical school. She has served as UTT’s executive vice president for health affairs since UT Tyler and the UT Health Science Center at Tyler merged to create a single, integrated university in 2021, and added the role of vice provost in 2022. Previously, she was chair of the Department of Medicine and professor of medicine at the UT Health Science Center at Tyler. In 2020, she was named as a board member of the East Texas Medical Center Foundation.

A native of Overton, Texas, near Tyler, Philley returned to East Texas in 2012 as an assistant professor of medicine at UT Health Tyler, where she continued research efforts in nontuberculous mycobacterial disease and bronchiectasis. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and studied medicine at UT Health Houston’s McGovern Medical School, completing an internal medicine residency program at Johns Hopkins University/Sinai Hospital and a fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Dallas. 

Philley and her husband, Richard Lee, are engaged in numerous Tyler activities, where Lee is the Music Director of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra and the Tyler Civic Chorale

“I am grateful for so many experiences provided to me at UT Tyler that offered a valuable understanding of the complexities of higher education and health care, and I am eager to work in this new capacity with my colleagues and throughout the community to make UT Tyler the best it can be,” said Philley.  “I thank Chairman Eltife, the regents and Chancellor Milliken for their confidence in me and for their ongoing and significant investments that continue to propel UT Tyler forward.”

About the University of Texas at Tyler

UT Tyler offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs to nearly 10,000 students across four campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston. In its alignment with UT Tyler Health Science Center and UT Health East Texas, UT Tyler is meeting critical healthcare needs in East Texas while also serving Texans with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. UT Tyler is home to the UT System’s seventh medical school, which welcomed its first cohort in fall 2023, and is classified as a Carnegie R2 research institution.