Rate My Professor Neil Hayes

D. Neil Hayes, MD, MS, MPH, is the Van Vleet Endowed Professor in Medical Oncology, Scientific Director of the UT-West Institute for Cancer Research, Director of the Center for Cancer Research, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology in the Department of Medicine, and Assistant Dean for Cancer Research at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He holds joint appointments in the Departments of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics and Preventive Medicine, as well as Professor of Bioinformatics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Hayes earned a BS in Chemistry from Davidson College, an MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MPH from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and an MS in Clinical Research from Tufts New England Medical Center. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine/Boston City Hospital and fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at Tufts New England Medical Center, including postdoctoral work in genomics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute under Dr. Matthew Meyerson.

Prior to joining UTHSC in 2017, Hayes was Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Cancer Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served as Director of Clinical Bioinformatics at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-leader of its Clinical Research Program. A leader in cancer genomics, he was principal investigator for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma project. His research focuses on translational studies of cancer genomics in aerodigestive tumors, including head and neck and lung cancers, integrating clinical care, trials, and model systems. Hayes has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 170,000 times, including key TCGA papers such as "The Cancer Genome Atlas Pan-Cancer analysis project" (Nature Genetics, 2013), "Comprehensive genomic characterization of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas" (Nature, 2015), and "Comprehensive and Integrative Genomic Characterization of Adult Soft Tissue Sarcomas" (Cell, 2017). His work has advanced molecular subtyping and precision oncology. Honors include Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2025), University of Tennessee System President's Award (2023), and election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2013).