Hayes was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but his family moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the age of five where he subsequently grew up.
Hayes remained in the state for his master's in clinical care research degree and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
[3] Hayes later earned a two-year $100,000 grant from Joan's Legacy to study molecular subtypes of non-small cell lung cancer.
They found evidence that tumors arise from different cells within the lung, suggesting a different biological origin among patients currently treated as a single group.
[8] Hayes was recruited to join the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2017 as the scientific director of the UT/West Institute for Cancer Research and the Van Vleet Endowed Professor in Medical Oncology in the Department of Medicine.