Dr. Alexander Perez joined UTMB in May 2017 as Surgical Director of LSTAR and Professor and Chief of the Division of Minimally Invasive and Foregut Surgery. Dr. Perez holds the Le Roy Hillyer, MD Endowed Chair in Surgery, is the Vice-Chair for Quality in the Department of Surgery, and is an adjunct professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a graduate of Bosque University Colombian Medical School in Bogota, Colombia, and completed his General Surgery residency at Baystate Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine in Springfield, Massachusetts. After completing his Endosurgery Fellowship at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, Dr. Perez joined the Department of Surgery at Duke where he was Associate Professor and Chief of the Section of Pancreatic Surgery from 2014-2017.

Cliff Snyder joined UTMB in September 2015 as a Physician Assistant in the Department of Surgery and Educational Director of LSTAR. He is faculty in the School of Medicine and recognized as a UT System Distinguished Teaching Professor. Prior to joining LSTAR, he was a PA-C at UTHealth/Memorial Hermann Hospital-TMC in the Department of Neurosurgery with a focus on acute trauma care. He is a graduate of the UTMB Physician Assistant Program and former Baylor University graduate majoring in Health Science Studies. He is an active Volunteer Firefighter and First Responder in Galveston County since 2005.

Shannon Delao has been the LSTAR Coordinator in the department of surgery since October 2013. Prior to joining LSTAR, shannon worked in the Operating Room as a Surgical Technologist where she performed as a lead preceptor for nurses and surgical techs. She has served UTMB for over 20 years, with her surgical experience and years in education/ research combined. She is passionate about patient safety and surgical education and loves to get creative in her role as a simulation specialist.

Jessica Rodriguez proudly joined the UTMB Surgery Administration and LSTAR departments in 2023 as an administrative coordinator. She had previously served as a Patient Access Specialist for the cardiology and neurosciences departments with the UTMB Access Center. Jessica has over seven years of experience as a divisional administrative assistant and has supported various leaders and departments, including the Division of Equity in Learning in Aurora, Colorado, an Austin-based school law firm, and The Texas Rural Education Association.

Jessica received her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, is a proud BOI and graduate of Ball High School.

Dr. Roshal is a second-year general surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. His research interests center around integrating contemporary educational theories and technologies to transform and democratize surgery education for medical students, residents, and patients. During residency, he created an on-demand multimedia curriculum for medical students with practical details not covered in textbooks or board exams. He hopes to extrapolate this work to create and evaluate e-learning resources to prepare surgery residents for success at the bedside, in the operating room, and on their standardized examinations.

Assistant Professor
Brigadier General and Mrs. D.B. Wagner Professorship in Surgical Simulation
Division of Urology
Department of Surgery