For more than 40 years, Thomas Yorio, PhD, has transformed the Health Science Center.

An internationally known glaucoma researcher and Provost Emeritus, Dr. Yorio was instrumental in growing HSC from a medical college into a graduate university with multiple schools. He joined the institution that became HSC in 1977, just seven years after it was founded as the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

As Provost, Dr. Yorio was known among faculty and staff for outstanding academic leadership and a commitment to helping HSC team members and students succeed.

He guided the expansion of TCOM into a full-fledged health science center by serving as founding Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which opened in 1993. He also was Interim Dean of the School of Public Health, the third college to open at UNT Health Science Center.

Dr. Yorio is a Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, where he served as a Trustee and Vice President and received its Distinguished Service Award. In 2014, he received the Ernst H. Barany Prize from the International Society for Eye Research in recognition of his outstanding contributions to ocular pharmacology. He was also Editor-in-Chief of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

For four decades of dedicated service, Dr. Yorio is an HSC Hero.

Contribute Honor your HSC hero today! Please make a tribute gift, submit a photo or share a story that you value. Join us throughout 2020 as we celebrate the people, events and innovations that made UNTHSC all it is today — and look ahead to the next 50 years. For the 50th anniversary, team members nominated people whose contributions make them HSC Heroes. Each week, a new Hero will be revealed. View the list of all our Hero profiles published so far this year. There is a new one each week.