Tiffany Carpenetti, PhD, describes herself pretty simply. “I’m just a big nerd.”
It’s an apt description for a woman who can talk enthusiastically about the beauty of a well-dissected network of intestinal arteries or the intricacy of the human hand. But before Carpenetti became an anatomist, the subject of her fascination was considerably smaller: mosquitoes.
As a graduate student in the Virginia Tech entomology department, she worked with her advisor to study gene regulation in mosquitoes. She helped to annotate six genes in the yellow fever mosquito, examining the mechanisms that controlled when and how those genes were expressed. Her work required both microdissection and molecular biology, including work with RNA, which is fragile and easily contaminated.
She’s a little obsessive about details, she said, but her attention to detail proved incredibly useful when she arrived at VCOM in 2016 as the anatomy lab supervisor. There was just one catch: She had never dissected a human cadaver. Ten years later, she is an associate professor for Anatomical Sciences at VCOM, and her unexpected path to becoming an anatomist—and the attention to detail she developed along the way—has helped shape her approach to teaching VCOM students.
As she began her new role in VCOM’s anatomy lab, Carpenetti completed every dissection her students did, working from head to toe on her own donor. Her background in microdissection translated well, and she learned human anatomy as she worked. Then-department chair John Anstrom would sit in the lab and read the dissection guide aloud while she worked, challenging her to master the material and become a strong instructor.
Over the next decade, she earned a graduate certificate in medical human anatomy from the University of Florida and pursued professional development to become, as she puts it, “the best anatomist I can be.” Today, she is the lead lecturer for foundational, musculoskeletal, and cardiopulmonary anatomy and has taught material across several other areas of VCOM-Virginia’s curriculum.
But the anatomy lab remains her favorite classroom.
VCOM students do dozens of dissections alongside anatomy faculty, giving Carpenetti an opportunity to know them in a way that isn’t always possible in a lecture hall. “It’s real face time. It’s elbow-to-elbow work,” she said. “It’s time in a place that can be psychologically challenging.”
That proximity means Carpenetti notices when a student is having a difficult time. “I can just saddle up to them and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going? Can I help you in any way? Do you need anything?’” she said. “I care about them as individuals.”
In fact, Carpenetti is very clear about her primary job at VCOM: “Supporting students is what I’m here to do.”
Now, her commitment to becoming a better educator has earned international recognition.
Carpenetti recently completed the 2026 International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) Medical Educator Fellowship, becoming one of nine professionals worldwide to earn the distinction this year. The two-year fellowship develops medical education scholars in curriculum design, teaching methods and strategies, assessment, educational scholarship, and leadership.
Before applying for the fellowship, Carpenetti completed IAMSE’s Essential Skills for Medical Educators program, which helped her think more deeply about the difference between knowing anatomy and teaching anatomy to future physicians.
For her fellowship project, Carpenetti studied VCOM’s medical imaging curriculum, examining whether educational resources were improving student performance. The results didn’t provide the clear evidence she expected, but the experience taught her an important lesson about choosing the right measures for educational research and helped redirect her work toward ultrasound education.
She is now continuing that work through a funded project incorporating 3D printing, and she is exploring ways to use augmented reality to help students better understand the anatomical relationships they see on an ultrasound screen.
The work is another step in an evolution that began when a molecular biologist who had spent years dissecting mosquitoes walked into a human anatomy lab for the first time.
Over the past decade, Carpenetti has become more willing to let students see the person behind the professor—including the self-described nerd in the tie-dyed lab coat she began wearing because, at 5-foot-3, she could be hard for students to spot in a crowded anatomy lab.
She tells first-year students not to wait when they begin to struggle. Talk to instructors. Ask for help. Don’t allow the pace of medical school to get ahead of you. Through it all, she wants students to understand that she is on their side. “My job here is to help students get where they want to go and help them find the right resources to help them keep their eye on the prize,” she said.
Carpenetti is also committed to VCOM's mission and is grateful for the opportunity it provides to have a broader and lasting impact. "What I love about VCOM’s mission is that the impact of what we do doesn’t stop with the student in front of us," she said. "If I can help a student become a knowledgeable, compassionate, confident physician, then in some small way I’m also helping every patient that student will care for throughout their career."