About Our President
Office of the President
About Dr. Julie V. Philley
Julie V. Philley, MD
President, The University of Texas at Tyler
On June 1, 2024, Julie V. Philley, MD became the sixth president of The University of Texas at Tyler and the first woman to lead the university.
A Professor of Medicine and board certified in internal, pulmonary and critical care medicine, Dr. Philley served as UT Tyler’s Executive Vice President for Health Affairs following the 2021 merger of UT Tyler and the UT Health Science Center at Tyler, which created a single, integrated university. She also served as Vice Provost from 2022 until she was appointed President. Dr. Philley played an instrumental role in launching the UT Tyler School of Medicine — the UT System’s seventh medical school, which welcomed its first cohort in 2023. Previously, she was Chair of the Department of Medicine and Professor of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center at Tyler.
A native of East Texas, Dr. Philley was raised in Overton. She returned to the region in 2012, serving as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center at Tyler, where she continued research efforts in nontuberculous mycobacterial disease and bronchiectasis. An accomplished researcher, Dr. Philley has led numerous studies and published book chapters and articles. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and her MD 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.
Dr. Philley is an active member of the East Texas community. In addition to her board leadership with UT Health East Texas, she also serves on the boards of Hospice of East Texas, the East Texas Quality Care Network, the East Texas Medical Center Foundation, UT Health Tyler, and Teaching Hospitals of Texas, among other community service activities. She and her husband, Richard Lee, live in Tyler, where Lee serves as Music Director of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra.