Vickie Shannon is a professor of medicine in the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the first African American woman to be promoted to full professorship in the Texas Medical Center. Shannon is triple boarded by the American Board of Internal Medicine in the medical disciplines of internal medicine, pulmonary diseases and critical care medicine. She is a nationally recognized pulmonary scholar who has published extensively in the areas of cancer-related lung injury. These publications have resulted in an extensive array of speaking engagements at local, national and international conferences.

After graduating from Smith, Shannon attended Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She completed three years of internship and residency training at the University of Texas Health Center at Houston and then returned to Washington University for her fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care medicine.

She has served in many student leadership roles and on local and national boards, including as chair of the summer experience program for first-year medical students, the Alumnae Association of Smith College, and ACE Cancer Care. She was voted within the top 1 percent of physicians nationally by the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. In 2017, Shannon received the prestigious Smith College Medal.