The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has announced promotions for three members of its leadership team.

Aubrey Knight has been promoted from associate to senior dean for student affairs. In this role, he spends much of his time with career and academic advising. He works with students to help guide them to resources aimed at improving their success in the classroom, at the bedside, and in the testing environment. Knight is also a professor of medicine and family and community medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

Knight has been a family medicine residency director as well as the program director for the Carilion Geriatric Medicine fellowship program. He has collaborated with the Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology on research related to aging and caregiving.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a Certified Medical Director with the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term-Care Medicine, and a member of the American Geriatric Society.

Knight earned his bachelor’s degree from Bridgewater College and his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He completed a family medicine residency at Carilion Clinic and a geriatric medicine fellowship at the University of Maryland.

Tracey Criss has been promoted from assistant to associate dean for clinical science years three and four. In this role, she is chair of the school’s Block Integration Committee 2, which oversees the clinical components of the medical students’ third and fourth years. This includes third-year clerkships and fourth-year electives. She is also assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the school.

Criss has been a member of the medical staff at Carilion Clinic since 1995. She has been involved in medical education throughout that time, including the education not only of medical students but also physician assistant students and residents with her work in Carilion Clinic’s outpatient, inpatient, consultation, and electroconvulsive therapy services. She has served in a number of governance roles, including a member of multiple medical staff committees and chief of staff at Carilion Medical Center. Currently, she is a member of the inaugural class of the national Carol Emmott Fellowship for women leaders in health care.

Criss earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Adventist University and her medical degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine. She completed a psychiatry residency at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine/Akron General Medical Center.

Tarin Schmidt-Dalton has been promoted from assistant to associate dean for clinical science years one and two. In this role, she oversees the teaching of clinical skills to medical students in the first and second years in the school’s curriculum. This includes the clinical skills program and the Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experiences (LACE).  Schmidt-Dalton is also associate professor of family and community medicine at the school.

Schmidt-Dalton joined the leadership team of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine as founding director of the Clinical Science and Skills Domain in 2008 before the school opened.  She has given numerous presentations across the country and served as president of Blue Ridge Family Medicine

Schmidt-Dalton has received numerous career awards, many of them related to teaching. She was named Family Medicine Attending of the Year in 2001 and the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians Teacher of the Year in 2012. At the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, she has received the school’s Teaching Faculty Award, voted on by students, four years in row. In addition, she was selected by the school’s charter class to be the first faculty graduation speaker and received the Class of 2017’s class monetary gift earmarked for the school’s Clinical Science Domain. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Schmidt-Dalton earned her bachelor’s degree in physiology at the University of Illinois and a medical degree from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She completed a family medicine residency at Carilion Clinic and a faculty development fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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