Office of the Provost names Tiffany S. Bumpers director of Health Professions Advising

Northwestern has hired Tiffany Bumpers to serve as the new director of Health Professions Advising, an Office of the Provost unit that supports students and alumni pursuing a career in the health professions, provides guidance on their options and choices, and contributes to building a health workforce that better reflects the diversity of our society.

Bumpers, who began Feb. 7, came to Northwestern with more than 10 years of professional experience advising pre-health students, with an emphasis on establishing strategic initiatives to advance students who are underrepresented in the health professions. Previously, she had served as the associate director of the Urban Health Program at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy since 2011. During this time, she developed the Undergraduate and Post-Baccalaureate Research Symposium (UPBRS), a one-day conference that exposes students to STEM research and a six-week Pharmacy College Admissions Test Review course. She also served as the director of the Urban Pathway Program (UPP), an eight-week high school summer program that received the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award in 2018 and 2021.

Bumpers recently completed her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and Foundations from Illinois State University. Her research focuses on the implicit education debt and cost to Black students’ college/university experiences and outcomes.

Bumpers earned bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and African American Studies from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a master’s degree in education policy from UIC.