Tierra Jolly

Dr. Tierra Jolly didn’t come to medicine the conventional way. Trained as a historian, she spent a decade teaching high school - from the Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina to leading a high school inclusion program for students with Down syndrome - before turning toward clinical work. She later served on the D.C. State Board of Education, where she advanced equity-focused policies and led the Board’s first efforts to close opportunity gaps.

In medical school, she merged her background in history and advocacy into a disability justice-centered approach to care, founding the WMed Alliance for Disability Advocacy, earning a distinction in medical ethics, partnering with the Center for Humane Diagnosis to improve physicians’ delivery of prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses, and serving as chapter president of Gold Humanism Honor Society.

As a Yale anesthesiology resident, she plans to pursue pediatric anesthesiology to support the youngest, most vulnerable patients and their families through the most stressful moments of their lives. A member of Yale’s 2025–2026 Legislative Advocacy Program (LEAD) cohort, she is committed to expanding the presence of PGM and disabled physicians and to ensuring compassionate, culturally competent care for all patients.