Professor Kenneth Ataga

Kenneth Ataga received his medical degree from the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria. After completing a rotating internship at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, he relocated to the United States when he underwent residency training in Internal Medicine at the State University of New York Health Science Center (currently Upstate Medical University) at Syracuse, NY, followed by a clinical and research fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He joined the faculty at UNC, Chapel Hill and rose to become Professor of Medicine and Director of the UNC Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program. In 2018, he relocated to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center at Memphis where he is the Plough Foundation Endowed Chair in Sickle Cell Disease, Director of the Center for Sickle Cell Disease, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Vice Chair in the Department of Medicine.