Dr. Diane Tucker (left) and Dr. Kay Knowlton (right)

Kay Knowlton, PhD, LPC 

Kay Knowlton, PhD, LPC, was born in Alabama and grew up in Jasper where she was graduated from Walker County High School in 1961. Beginning as a student at Birmingham-Southern College where she earned an AB degree in English in 1965, she worked with adolescents in youth ministry for The United Methodist Church for 15 years. Kay's counseling career began in 1977 with a Master's Degree in Counseling from UAB and 11 years at Planned Parenthood as Director of Counseling. She began seeing private clients as well and was among the first group of Professional Counselors to be licensed in Alabama.

After earning a PhD in Counseling from The University of Alabama in 1984, Kay taught the counseling practicum course in the School of Education graduate program at UAB for 10 years. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor, certified as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor, a Clinical Supervisor, and an AASECT-certified Sex Therapist. She is a National Board Certified Counselor as well. Kay's work with the UAB Center for Palliative Care began in 2005 and with the Palliative and Comfort Care Unit when it opened at University Hospital in 2006. Her role as Palliative Care Counselor includes working with the Interdisciplinary Team to provide counseling/psychology service to patients, patient families, and staff in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. She also teams with clinical psychologist Dr. Diane Tucker to supervise doctoral students in counseling and psychology as they work in both settings. Kay is married and lives in Birmingham, enjoys traveling, movies, and reading mysteries, and volunteers as North Alabama Conference advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse in The United Methodist Church.


Diane C. Tucker, PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist

During her career, Dr. Tucker has been an active researcher. Dr. Tucker's research focuses on several issues related to genetic testing, psycho-oncology and palliative medicine. Genetics has been called the next frontier for medicine. Dr. Tucker's group is examining how people understand genetic risk information and how information about genetic risk is used in people's evaluations of their personal risk, including their decisions about health related behaviors. A recently completed analogue study suggested that genetically-based risk information may not be weighted more heavily than family history risk information. A related question is whether perceived risk for one health problem alters perception of risk for another, unrelated problem. Recent studies focus on issues in palliative medicine such as young adults' opinions about home death and the efficacy of education about hospice in making opinions more favorable. 

In addition to overseeing the Psychology Service at the outpatient Palliative Care clinic, Dr. Tucker is the founding director of UAB's Science and Technology Honors Program. Dr. Tucker is married and lives in Vestavia Hills. She has a son in the Marine Corps and four stepsons. She loves dancing, gardening, and outdoor activities and is active in the Unitarian Universalist Church. Dr. Diane Tucker earned her Ph.D. from University of Iowa in 1981 in Clinical and Developmental Psychology. She did her Clinical Internship year at University of Washington in Seattle, WA. A postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis completed her training. She joined the Psychology faculty in January 1985 as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and to Professor in 1993.