Student Scholars
Class of 2013
Rosalyn Adigun
Brief biography here...Rosalyn Adigun is third year medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch. A first generation American, Rosalyn completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Houston with a Pharm.D. (Pharmacy). Shortly thereafter, she was commissioned as an officer in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) and stationed with the United States Food and Drug Administration, until the fall of 2009. During her tenure with the USPHS, she was deployed on various missions including the Surgeon Generals Rapid Deployment Force during the Hurricane Gustav and Ike relief efforts and was awarded a unit citation for her service.
A student in the UTMB Global Health program, Rosalyn spent the summer of 2009 conducting clinical research in Neurology at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana, West Africa. Rosalyn is involved with numerous organizations on and off campus and her interests in public health and care of the underserved are a few of the reasons she chose UTMB for her medical education. She desires to pursue a career in critical care medicine and hopes to be involved in medical missions locally and abroad.
John Arvesen
Brief biography here...John Arvesen is a fourth year medical student at UTMB with an interest in orthopedic surgery. A 2009 magna cum laude graduate of Baylor University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences, he also was a member of two Big Twelve Championship tennis teams at Baylor. With a family legacy of medical practitioners dating back to the early 1800’s, John developed an interest in medicine at an early age. During college, John was able to travel to Brazil and participate in Amazon Outreach, a medical mission trip to local villages along the Amazon River. As a Baylor senior, John was selected to spend a semester studying abroad in Baylor’s pre-med program in Maastricht, The Netherlands where classes would travel to important historical medical sites including visits to King’s College (London), the Louis Pasteur Institute (Paris), and meeting Gunter von Hagens, the founder of Body Worlds, in Guben, Poland.
Throughout medical school, John has been actively involved in leadership with the Christian Medical Association and Baptist Student Ministries and served with students both in Galveston at St. Vincent’s Clinic and in Laredo, TX. He also is part of the global health track, spending two months in Kenya. While in Kenya, John worked at the House of Hope Orphanage where he and a team of students now continue to promote and develop a local clinic. Outside of medicine, John enjoys most sports, guitar, reading, and painting.
David P. Darrow
Brief biography here...David Darrow is a third year medical student at UTMB. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Physics and a Bachelors of Science in Pure Mathematics from Texas A&M University in 2008. He attended medical school directly after college and was quickly exposed to patients through the St. Vincent's Free Student Clinic. He became interested in and was spurred on by the prevalence of debilitating disease states that were a product of preventable illness. He started a community garden in downtown Galveston in 2010, which incited him to create a nonprofit organization called the Green House Foundation with the goal of supporting gardening as a vehicle for change in communities and in health.
David joined Frontera de Salud as a Galveston-based Director in 2010 and has used that connection to expand his gardening initiative to the Galveston Independent School District through the installation of an on-campus garden at Austin Middle School. With the support of the John P. McGovern Foundation, he has been able to co-found the UTMB Botanical Medicine Garden, bringing together a historical perspective on modern medicine and pharmaceuticals. David has also been an officer of the UTMB Student Sailing club for two years and helped to develop and implement the Coastal Community Care Project in summer of 2010. In 2011, David became a director at St Vincent's student-run clinic, as well as an executive board member for the St. Vincent's Clinic. At the end of his third year, David will begin a one year masters in public health with the UTMB PMCH department.
John Dryden
Brief biography here...John Dryden is a member of the School of Medicine Class of 2013 at The University of Texas Medical Branch. Originally from Wichita Falls, he attended The University of Texas at Austin, where he played trombone in the Longhorn Band and UT Trombone Choir. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a History degree in the Plan I program, he worked as the writing intern for the Texas Historical Foundation before deciding to attend medical school at UTMB.
During his time at UTMB, John has been involved as a mentor in the Forssmann Osler Society and as president of the Bow Tie Social Club, the McGovern Academy's history of medicine organization. Additionally, he has served as an active member of Theta Kappa Psi Medical Fraternity, which hosts several community events, including the annual Teen, Kids, and Youth Camp. His travels to various clinics and hospitals in South America while in medical school have shown him the importance of cultural education and community organization--lessons he strives to apply as a director of St. Vincent's Free Student Clinic and as Vice President of the William Temple Episcopal Center, an affiliated student and community center.
Christina Gomez-Mira
Brief biography here...Christina Gomez-Mira graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Spanish Literature. She went on to spend two years as a Peace Corps community health volunteer in a rural village in Burkina Faso, West Africa. She later worked for a non-profit in Austin, Texas aiding newly arrived refugees in the resettlement process. Her interest in photography was born when she began photographing Somali Bantu refugees and their experiences on arriving in the U.S. Christina worked with a wildlife photographer in Panama on a story for National Geographic and on a project documenting the gentrification of the Historic District of Panama City. It was while photographing medical relief efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit that she felt she was on the wrong side of the camera and an interest in working in health care was re-inspired.
She worked with People's Community Clinic in Austin, a clinic for uninsured, as a health educator and manager of their satellite clinics for homeless youth before starting medical school at UTMB. She is now a 2nd year student interested in preventative and integrative medicine, addressing health inequities and fusing her passions for visual arts and health.
Phillip Hoverstadt
Brief biography here...Phillip Hoverstadt is a 4th year MD/MPH student. After graduating from Nolan Catholic High School in Ft. Worth, Texas, Phillip attended the University of Texas in Austin where he received a BS in Biochemistry, graduating Magna Cum Laude. While enrolled at UT Austin, Phillip found his 'home away from home' at the University Catholic Center, where, in the company of phenomenal friends and mentors, increasingly valued the importance of service-centered activities, and the dignity of the human person. After a humanitarian trip to Arteaga, Mexico, an experience that enkindled his interests in international aid and culture, he studied in Guadalajara, Mexico as an exchange student where he studied medicine at a local medical school in addition to rotating in a hospital catering to the underserved. Upon returning to the U.S., he enrolled in an accelerated French course, and then, studied French humanities and culture in Strasbourg, France for five months the following year.
During his first year as a medical student Phillip became heavily involved in a number of service organizations including St. Vincent's Student Clinic, Frontera de Salud, the Ashbel Smith Society, and Catholic Medical Professionals, all of which, in subsequent years, he directed alongside his inspiring peers. During his first three years of medical school, Phillip returned to Mexico on four separate occasions, and completed a two-month research elective in Sao Paulo, Brazil in addition to volunteering at a family medicine clinic located in the heart of Sao Paulo's 'favelas' or slums.
In 2011, Phillip pursued a Master of Public Health (MPH) at UTMB, where he focused on public policy and health care transformation in the state of Texas. While completing his MPH, Phillip, with the assistance of David Darrow, a good friend and fellow Osler scholar, founded an organization known as Student's Together for Service, with the intent of protecting and promoting student service activities on campus and Galveston Island. That same year, under the auspices of Dr. Lee Grumbles and Sue Minello, he developed a hospice care training program for students.
Phillip is immensely grateful for the education received while at UTMB, and continually humbled by the abundant expertise and compassion present amongst the UTMB community. Upon finishing his studies, in the Spring semester, Phillip will work in a developing emergency department in rural Uganda, where he intends on utilizing his training in public health to provide improved access-to-care for the surrounding communities. He will later return to Europe to spend time in prayer with his beloved friends at Fraternité de Tibériade.
Class of 2014
Sean M. Paschall
Brief biography here...Sean Paschall is a member of the 2013 school of medicine class at the University of Texas Medical Branch. After graduating high school in Denver, CO Sean attended Rice University and received a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering in 2009 as a magna cum laude graduate. During his time at Rice he was involved with many community and health projects such as YMCA's outdoor lab camp and Engineers Without Borders as well as serving as a volunteer emergency medical technician.
While at UTMB Sean has been involved in school and community based events focused on student education and preventative healthcare. Sean currently serves as a co-director of Student Liaisons to guide incoming medical students, co-coordinator of Student Ambassadors for interviewing medical school applicants, as well as a Director of Sir William Osler's Name That Book. Sean and fellow Osler Student Scholar Greg Valentine started this program in 2010 to instill a passion for self-directed learning and reading in third and fourth graders through mentorship by medical students.
The program brought together several community members and four Galveston elementary schools in addition to a great number of UTMB members to mentor the kids and make reading enjoyable for them. The program plans to expand its efforts for 2011 to other Galveston schools. Currently Sean plans pursue his interest in orthopedic surgery with a focus on the ankle and foot. He has a great passion for creative thinking and engineering design and enjoys long boarding and golf in his spare time.
Roxanne L. Radi
Brief biography here...Roxanne Radi is a member of UTMB's class of 2014. Before coming to UTMB, she attended the Johns Hopkins University where she earned degrees in Public Health and Latin American Studies. Since beginning medical school, she has become a regular volunteer at St. Vincent's Free clinic. She also volunteered in the Newborn Nursery and NICU as a first year student while helping the Sailing Club at UTMB as an instructor teaching other students how to sail. As a first year student, Roxanne served as a mentor in the Name That Book program, and this year she is excitedly planning the upcoming year's events as a program co-director.
Roxanne is interested in preventive medicine and spent 7 weeks in northern China at a family medicine residency program studying sustainability in foreign medical education. She is currently UTMB's representative delegate to the Medical Student Section of the American Medical Association and is working on improving UTMB's representation in the Texas caucus and encouraging resolution writing from UTMB students.
Robert A. Reyes
Brief biography here...Robert Reyes is a second year medical student at UTMB. Robert is originally from Mount Pleasant, Texas, and graduated from Columbia University in New York, New York, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. In addition to volunteering at St. Vincent's Clinic, Robert has travelled to Brownsville, Texas, with the UTMB chapter of Frontera de Salud to provide primary care and health screenings for the underserved. In April 2011 along with students from other Frontera de Salud chapters, he travelled to the State Capitol in Austin and met with legislators to advocate for continued funding of University of Texas Outreach (UTCO), a program aimed at preventing and controlling the diabetes epidemic in Texas. Robert currently serves as a student director of Frontera de Salud's Brownsville Project.
In addition to his service activities, Robert enjoys medical research and was the recipient of the 2011 First Place Poster Award among UTMB medical students whose summer research projects were funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Robert intends to uphold the principles of Oslerian Medicine as he completes his medical education and pursues a career in academic medicine.
Jaipreet Suri
Brief biography here...Jaipreet Suri is a member of UTMB's School of Medicine Class of 2014. Before coming to UTMB, Jaipreet graduated Cum Lade from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology, Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Finance, and a minor in Psychology. While at SMU, Jaipreet received SMU’s most highly prized recognition bestowed upon students, faculty, staff, and administrators - The M Award. Throughout his undergraduate career, Jaipreet tutored and mentored high school students from low income and disadvantaged families in math and science and was involved in several community and leadership projects.
At UTMB, Jaipreet has served in various capacities, including the Vice-President of the UTMB American Medical Association and Texas Medical Association (AMA/TMA) chapters and Co-Director of the Asclepios Osler Student Society. Jaipreet exemplifies extraordinary integrity, servant-leadership, and compassion, which mirrors his life-long dedication of serving others. As a second year medical student, Jaipreet organized an Anti-Tobacco campaign in Galveston, TX. Student leaders from UTMB went to schools (grades 2-8) around Galveston and educated children about the dangers of smoking tobacco in an attempt to deter them from taking up smoking and/or using tobacco products. Approximately 1000 students in six schools participated in the program. Additionally, Jaipreet aided in organizing a community health fair designed to address the unique health issues of the South-Asian population of the Galveston/Houston area. Along with medical literature and lectures from community physicians, free screening for total cholesterol, blood glucose, blood pressure, and BMI was available for people attending the event.
Jaipreet has a strong passion for research and is working with Dr. Celeste Finnerty on a translational research project that focuses on attenuation of the hypermetabolic and hyper-inflammatory responses induced by burn injuries. Jaipreet continues to volunteer at his local church in Dallas, St. Vincent’s Student Clinic, Habitat for Humanity, Galveston Island Tree Conservancy, and other volunteer projects on the island.
Jaipreet has a strong passion for research and is working with Dr. Celeste Finnerty on a translational research project that focuses on attenuation of the hypermetabolic and hyper-inflammatory responses induced by burn injuries. Jaipreet continues to volunteer at his local church in Dallas, St. Vincent's Student Clinic, Habitat for Humanity, Galveston Island Tree Conservancy, and other volunteer projects on the island.
Class of 2015
Jacqueline Posada
Brief biography here...Jacqueline Posada graduated from The George Washington University in Washington, DC with a B.S. in Biology. After college she remained in the Washington, DC, area to work at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through the Post-Baccalaureate Intramural Research Award Fellowship. She worked with Dr. Susan Moir in the Lab of Immunoregulation-HIV Immunopathogenesis researching how b cells and facets of humoral immunity become dysregulated during immune activation caused by HIV infection. During her work from 2009-2011 she also participated in studies about the H1N1 pandemic virus and the generation of memory b cells after vaccination with a novel antigen.
As a medical student at UTMB, Jacqueline participates in a variety of extracurricular activities: a chief reviewer on the 2015 Scribes Council; student representative for the Truman Blocker, Jr. Osler Society; and president of the medical Spanish club Que Quiere Decir. She also volunteers at St. Vincent’s student clinic. Jacqueline is interested in public health and expanding access to health care in the United States, and she will most likely pursue a residency in Internal Medicine.
Casey Sharpe
Brief biography here...Casey Sharpe studied biology and literature at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, he accepted an invitation to tour New Zealand as a sponsored folk singer, which would set the stage for a lengthy postponement of medical school. Upon returning to Texas, Casey was recruited by a non-profit organization to procure transplantable tissues and organs from cadavers. During this time, he performed dissections for more than a hundred tissue donations around the state, while also working as a trauma and resuscitation technician at Dell Children’s emergency department. In 2010, he organized and participated in a mission trip to a Zambian orphanage, where hundreds of HIV-positive children lived without adequate food or healthcare. Just before arriving in Galveston for medical school, Casey lived and worked for several months on rural farms in North Carolina and Guatemala.
Casey is interested in many areas of medicine, and as such, is drawn towards the broad scope of practice enjoyed by rural family physicians. After his first year of medical school, he spent a month in the desert towns of West Texas, delivering babies and making house calls with the local family doctor. While in West Texas, Casey was selected as a writer for Medscape’s blog, The Differential, and also had some of his articles published by WebMD.
Alyssa M. Shell
Brief biography here...Alyssa Shell is a MD/PhD student in Population Health Sciences, a program that allows her to combine her love of one-on-one patient care and her commitment to strengthening communities. Her interest in medicine began as an undergraduate at Harvard University during a summer research experience in Santiago, Chile. There, she first encountered the concepts of patient-centered care and cultural sensitivity, those key elements that allow medicine to blend humanism and science. Since that summer, her life has naturally led towards a career in medicine. In 2005, she graduated with an A.B. in Social Studies and a Certificate in Health Policy after completing her senior thesis on the experiences of type 2 diabetes among Mexican American women in southwest New Mexico. During her time between college and medical school, Alyssa traveled extensively in South America through farm-based work-trade opportunities and then returned to the States to apprentice with a medicinal herbalist in Silver City, New Mexico. She continues to draw heavily on these experiences for inspiration as she works towards a future in rural family medicine research and practice.
As a medical student, Alyssa served as president of UTMB's student interest group for Integrative Medicine (SIAM), as the Humanistic Medicine officer for the UTMB AMSA chapter and is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She also founded and directed an afterschool bicycle mechanics program, Bridging Responsibility and Independence Through Exercise, that donates bicycles to local middle school students and pairs them with a mentor to practice bicycle mechanics and safe cycling. As a graduate student, Alyssa is reengaging with her interest in culture and medicine as she develops her dissertation proposal on the effects of ethnically dense residential living for mental health and well-being. Though fully engaged in her graduate work, Alyssa is excited to retain her connection to patient care as a student director at St. Vincent's student-run free clinic for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Class of 2016
Rachel M. Pearson, M.D., Ph.D.
Brief biography here...Rachel Pearson is an MD/PhD student at UTMB's Institute for the Medical Humanities. She holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in the interdisciplinary Plan 2 Honors program. Her undergraduate thesis work was in creative writing, and her short stories and poetry have appeared in the Windward Review, the Mid-American Review, and elsewhere.
Rachel's interest in storytelling led her to medicine. She is constantly amazed by the stories that patients bring, and by the skilled caregivers who create a space for patients to tell their stories. Her research at the Institute will focus on narrative medicine, with special attention to physician-poets and to the elaboration of a theory of consciousness that poses the mind as an instrument of storytelling. She loves working with patients at St. Vincent's clinic, and hopes to do indigent care for the rest of her life. Rachel is thrilled to be becoming a physician, especially with the thoughtful guidance and community of the McGovern Academy.
- Class of 2013
- Rosalyn Adigun
- John Arvesen
- David Darrow (MD/MPH)
- John Dryden
- Christina Gomez-Mira
- Phillip Hoverstadt (MD/MPH)
- Class of 2014
- Sean Paschall (MD/MPH)
- Roxanne Radi
- Robert A. Reyes
- Jaipreet Suri
- Class of 2015
- Jacqueliine Posada
- Casey Sharpe
- Alyssa Shell (MD/PhD)
- Class of 2016
- Rachel Pearson (MD/PhD)