Dr. Ben Raimer, UTMB president ad interim, presented six UTMB employees with the President’s Way To Go Award during the Sept. 25 Town Hall meeting for their contributions during Tropical Storm Imelda, which deluged the upper Texas coast in early September. Employees receiving the award were Erika Rodriguez, patient registration specialist II; Cynthia Sanchez, patient registration specialist I; Delores Ydrogo, patient registration specialist I; Cynthia Longoria, patient registration specialist I; Christopher D. Williams, patient registration specialist I; and Keoshia Loston, patient registration specialist II. These UTMB team members worked extra shifts when their colleagues couldn’t get to work because of the heavy rains and street flooding.
Dr. Wenbo Zhang, professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, has been selected to receive a Faculty STARs Award, a prestigious honor from UT System that supports the recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty members to system institutions. Zhang has been a UTMB faculty member since 2011 His laboratory research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of retinal injury in conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy of prematurity and glaucoma.
Dr. Bo Chen, who just recently joined UTMB as assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Cell Biology and Anatomy, has been selected as a UT System Rising STARs Award recipient. Chen, who joined UTMB after completing his postdoctoral training at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, has focused his research on spinal cord injury and the development of strategies to strengthen brain-spinal cord connections after injury. The Rising STARs Award supports the recruitment of outstanding young faculty members to UT System institutions.
Congratulations to several members of UTMB’s nursing staff for receiving 2019 Excellence in Nursing Awards from The Good Samaritan Foundation. This year’s recipients include silver medalist Michelle Karsten and bronze medalists James Bozeman, Marre Dang, Kelli Gonzales, Melissa Gonzalez, Mary Hill, Yolanda Leyva, Katheryn Mazoch-Henson, Sara Niebuhr, Kelly Oliver, Charmaine Shannon, April Vaughn and Andrea Wirt. In addition, Jacquelyn Svoboda received the bronze medal for nursing education. The annual Excellence in Nursing Awards recognize nurses who are leaders at the bedside offering extraordinary and compassionate care and service.