Dr. Kirk A. Calhoun was selected to serve as president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler on November 1, 2002. He is also the chairman of the Board of Directors for UT Health East Texas.

Prior to his appointment, he was Senior Vice President and Medical Director at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. He was also a faculty member and administrator at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) from 1993 to 2000.

A native of Chicago, Dr. Calhoun earned a medical degree from the University of Kansas School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, as well as a fellowship in clinical nephrology, hypertension, and metabolism at the University of Chicago. Following his formal education, he worked in a variety of educational and administrative capacities with the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri. He then moved to Texas and spent 10 years at UTMB, serving as an associate professor of medicine and the corporate medical director of UTMB HealthCare Systems. He served as the Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs with the UT Southwestern Medical School and as a Senior Vice President and the Medical Director at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

As an active member of the community, he is involved with several organizations locally, statewide and nationally. He served two years as the chairman of the executive committee of the National Association of Public Hospitals (NAPH). He has also served on the board of trustees of the Texas Hospital Association (THA) and currently serves on the board of trustees of the Teaching Hospitals of Texas and the executive committee of America’s Essential Hospitals. He also serves on the Council of Graduate Medical Education (COGME), Texas Department of State Health Services Council, and the Council of Teaching Hospitals (COTH).

In December 2020, Dr. Calhoun was selected to serve as president over The University of Texas at Tyler.