Vice Dean for Academic Affairs

Dr. Mouton serves as the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs for the School of Medicine and as a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. With more than two decades of experience, Dr. Mouton is a nationally recognized leader in education as well as in patient care and research. He is especially known for his expertise in mentorship and curricula development.

In March 2017, Dr. Mouton joined UTMB from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, where he served as Senior Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine. He was also Adjunct Professor of Medical Education and Administration for Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. Before moving to Meharry in 2010, Dr. Mouton was Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Howard University College of Medicine where he received both his undergraduate and doctoral degrees. He also earned a master's degree in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1997. Dr. Mouton established Meharry's first Clinical Simulation Center and helped lead Howard's Master of Public Health program.

Senior Associate Dean for Educational Performance

Michael Ainsworth, MD is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Educational Performance in the School of Medicine. In this role, he is integrally involved in the school’s student assessment and competency programs, especially as they relate to clinical and professional performance skills.

A faculty member at UTMB for over 30 years, Dr. Ainsworth has served in a number of clinical, teaching and administrative roles, including Internal Medicine Clerkship Director, Assistant and Associate Dean for Educational Affairs, and Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. He has been a leader in developing new educational initiatives in the School of Medicine, including the Integrative Curriculum Evaluation Exercise (1990), a summative post-clerkship standardized patient-based assessment exercise; the problem-based Interactive Learning Track (1994); and the Transformation in Medical Education Initiative (2013). He has also served a leading role in developing the School’s community-based education components, including regional clinical campuses in Texas.

Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs

Dr. Szauter received her MD degree from Case Western Reserve University, completed a residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowships in Gastroenterology and Nutrition. She is an assistant dean in Educational Affairs and the Medical Director of the Office of Clinical Simulation. She is also Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine/Gastroenterology and Co-director of the Internal Medicine year-3 Clerkship.

Dr. Szauter works with the SP staff to ensure that medical aspects of the SP cases and portrayals are accurate. She also coordinates projects and research in the SP Center. Her areas of interest in addition to Standardized Patients include the teaching and evaluation of clinical skills, professionalism and professional development.

Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs and Director of Instruction Management Office

Dr. Lisa Elferink received her PhD in Biochemistry from Adelaide University, Australia in 1988. She completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford University in 1993, at which time she was recruited to Wayne State University, Michigan as an Assistant Professor.

She joined the UTMB faculty in the now Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology in 2001, and assumed the role of Vice-Chair in 2008. She has significant teaching expertise with a wide range of learners including undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and medical students.

In 2015, she accepted the appointment of Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs and Director of the Instruction Management Office. She oversees years 1 and 2 of the medical school curriculum.

Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs

Dr. Farr graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in Finance, working in business, prior to completing his medical training at UTMB. He completed his residency at the Harvard Medicine-Pediatrics program at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Farr practices Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and plans to pursue research in health care delivery models in community settings and practice medical education.

Assistant Dean for Admissions & Recruitment

Dr. Carroll received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska in 1979 and a research fellowship at Wake Forest in North Carolina in 1982. He accepted a faculty position with UTMB in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health in 1987.

As a faculty member for over 30 years, he has been actively involved in education and teaching. He was active in helping develop the problem based learning system that was the foundation for the curriculum used today in the medical school.  He has been a facilitator and lecturer throughout the years and has served on Course committees, the Admissions Committee, Academic Progress Committee, Curriculum Committee, and Elective Review Committee. 

Associate Dean, Student Affairs and Admissions

Dr. Levine grew up in Galveston, received her MD from UTMB, and completed an internship in Internal Medicine. She went on to Boston University where she completed a residency in Psychiatry and was also chief resident. She returned to UTMB in 1991 and joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry where she is currently the Clarence Ross Miller Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.    

Dr. Levine has held many administrative responsibilities at UTMB including course and clerkship director, inaugural director of the UTMB Academy of Master Teachers, Director of Undergraduate Education for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs, and Director of the Office of Clinical Education.

Director, School of Medicine Special Programs including the Faculty-Advisory Program, the Hispanic Center of Excellence and Frontera de Salud

For over 20 years, Dr. Pérez has focused on health disparities in the Latino population. Since her tenure in the Office of Student Affairs and Admissions (2009), her efforts have been dedicated to building culturally competent linguistically appropriate physicians through her expansion of POM HABLE (2009), the development of the Bilingual Health Track (2010-2013), Clinical Conversational Spanish for English and Spanish Healthcare Professionals© (2013), PBL HABLE (2014)  and advocating for Community Service Learning and interprofessionalism. She is currently leading the development of the Faculty-Advisory Program to provide advising to medical students across all four years.

Norma Alicia Pérez, MD, DrPH, earned her MD from the Universidad de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, and completed her residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico.  She was a licensed physiatrist in Mexico before returning to Houston where she completed her doctorate in Public Health in International and Family Health at the University of Texas – Houston, Health Science Center School of Public Health.

Associate Dean, Educational Affairs

Assistant Dean for Educational Development

Dr. Buck has served as Senior Medical Educator in the Office Educational Development for almost 8 years and is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at UTMB. She completed a BS in Education at the University of Texas at Austin and received her MA and PhD in social psychology from the University of Houston. During twenty years in undergraduate and graduate medical education, her work has focused on faculty development, program evaluation, and educational research. She is a UT Distinguished Teaching Professor, a member of the Academy of Master Teachers and the Shine Academy of Health Science Education.

She currently oversees the course and clerkship evaluation processes and has been engaged in research in the areas of professional identity formation and humanism in medical education. At UTMB, she serves as chair of the Education Research Committee for the School of Medicine, Associate director of the Physician Healer Track and enjoys serving as a faculty and mentor for the Scholars in Education program. Within the broader medical education community, she is as an associate editor for Medical Education Online and reviews for numerous conferences and journals in medical education.