Dee U. Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS

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Dee U. Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS

University of Texas at Austin

Dee U. Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS, is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Physiology in the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s been an APS member since 1977.

APS members are doing amazing things. We asked Dee Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS—one of our esteemed member-researchers and author of the best-selling textbook <span style="text-decoration: underline">Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach</span>—to tell us about her work teaching the next generation of physiologists. We also learned that she sees the world through physiology-colored glasses.

What do you do?

I am a physiologist, a writer, an artist and a teacher. I started my career studying how crab gills work but sometimes life takes twists. So for more than 30 years, I have been teaching physiology and doing research at the University of Texas at Austin. My ‘claim to fame’ is that I am the author of a popular human physiology textbook for undergraduate students that is currently in its 8th edition and that has been translated into seven languages.

I love watching my students fall in love with physiology as they come to appreciate the complexity of how the body works, and I get to hear from students of all ages around the world who have studied from my book.

What outside of science inspires you?

Physiology is part of life, so even when I am not working as a scientist, I find it everywhere—in the plants growing in my garden, in seeing colors change as I mix paint, in watching athletes' bodies as they move or in listening to friends as they talk about the latest medical news. We may retire from work but once a physiologist, always a physiologist.