Penny A. Asbell, MD, FACS, MBA, FARVO, has been named chair of the Department of Ophthalmology in the College of Medicine and Director of the Hamilton Eye Institute at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).

Dr. Asbell comes to UTHSC from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York, where she is a professor of ophthalmology and director of the Cornea Service and of the Cornea Clinical and Research Fellowships, which she initiated. She is the vice chair of the ISMMS Appointment and Promotion Committee, medical director of the Faculty Practice for Ophthalmology, and system vice chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Ophthalmology.

She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and her MBA as valedictorian from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York. She obtained her medical degree from the State University of New York. Dr. Asbell completed her postdoctoral training at Yale New Haven

She founded the Ocular Inflammatory Biomarker Laboratory at Mount Sinai.