On Tuesday morning, more than two dozen organizations set up tables in HEC 3.222 for the School of Public and Population Health's Career Connections Mixer, the second event of National Public Health Week 2026. Students moved between representatives from the CDC, Dow Chemical, Phillips 66, Pfizer, the American Heart Association, and nearly 20 other employers. The room looked less like a traditional public health career fair and more like a cross-section of the Texas workforce.
That was by design. Dr. Dana Wiltz-Beckham, Assistant Dean for Student Advancement, organized the mixer around a premise she returns to often in her teaching: public health skills travel further than students expect. An MPH student trained in epidemiology can track infectious disease outbreaks at a county health department, but the same analytical thinking applies to corporate safety programs at an oil and gas company or performance measurement at a data consulting firm. The goal was to put that idea in front of students in the form of real people and real job descriptions, not just a lecture slide.
Data Consultancies Next to City Government
The partner list spanned healthcare systems like Houston Methodist and Kelsey-Seybold, government agencies including the Galveston County Health District, Harris County Public Health, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), nonprofits like the American Heart Association and the As One Foundation, and companies that do not typically recruit at schools of public health. Phillips 66 and Dow Chemical were there. So were Pfizer and the Southwest Transplant Alliance. Prairie View A&M Wellness in Houston, West Oaks Hospital, and others rounded out the mix.
After the mixer, several of the industry partners shared that they had learned from students about skill sets they had not previously associated with public health training. One partner said she planned to revise her organization's recruiting language to reflect competencies like data-driven decision-making and population-level thinking.
An Alumni Exercise in How Applications Actually Work
Igor Vouffo, MPH, an SPPH alumnus now working at the Houston Health Department, brought a stack of five job descriptions from positions he had applied to. He tallied the open-ended application questions across all five. Two had none. Two had two. One had nine. The job with nine open-ended questions was the only one that led to a callback.
His point to students was direct: applications with open-ended questions are a place to show how you think, how you approach problems, and what you have done during your degree program. A resume listing your degree and limited experience cannot carry that weight alone. For students early in their careers, those written responses can be the difference between being filtered out and being invited in.
Students Came Prepared
Several students arrived with printed resumes and CVs, ready for the kind of conversations Dr. Wiltz-Beckham had encouraged them to prepare for. She had distributed a tip sheet in advance recommending a 30-second elevator pitch, thoughtful questions, and follow-up after the event. The mixer also served as a venue for students exploring Applied Practice Experience (APE) placements, a required component of the MPH curriculum.
Attendees came from across UTMB's graduate programs. SPPH students represented MPH concentrations in epidemiology, public health practice, and bioethics, along with PhD programs in Population Health Sciences, Rehabilitation and Health Services Research, and Bioethics and Health Humanities. At least one Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences student in experimental pathology attended, as did two School of Nursing BSN-RN students. A University of Houston intern who heard about the mixer stopped by as well.
The CDC representative at the mixer was recruiting for the Public Health Associate Program (PHAP), a two-year paid fellowship that places early-career professionals in state and local public health agencies. The associate application opened on April 6.
"It was a great introduction to a nontraditional public health career and advocacy opportunities. I made two great contacts for my involvement in the public health sphere. The agencies and representatives brought in for the event were eager to visit with us and share how their roles intersect with public health."
Heidi Lutz, MPH in Public Health Practice student
"The Career Connections mixer provided an amazing opportunity to build new networks and engage in valuable conversations about public health in extremely different fields. I was introduced to professionals in organ transplantation, infectious disease control, industrial environmental safety, and mental health emergency care. The mixer inspired me to seek opportunities outside of traditional health organizations and learn new pathways towards implementing public health across these fields."
Klarisa Lopez, MPH in Bioethics student
"Each individual I spoke to not only provided me with opportunities at their organization but also gave me overall feedback on how to excel in the public health field. It was refreshing to have honest advice on how to advocate for myself in the job market."
Izabella Galindo, MPH in Epidemiology student
Building Social Capital, One Conversation at a Time
Dr. Wiltz-Beckham frequently uses the term "social capital" with her students. She describes it as the accumulating value of professional relationships maintained over time. It is not just who you know at an event, but whether you follow up, stay in contact, and keep building on the connection. She has seen it work firsthand in her career, both in hiring decisions she has made and in opportunities that materialized for students months after an initial introduction.
At the mixer, that idea played out in real time. Students practiced introducing themselves, asking questions about organizations they had not previously considered, and collecting contact information for follow-up. For many, the conversations went beyond job listings. Partners offered mentoring, career advice, and a clearer picture of how public health competencies apply in settings that do not carry "public health" in the title.
The Career Connections Mixer was the second event of UTMB SPPH's National Public Health Week 2026 programming. The week continues Wednesday with the Public Health Symposium and a keynote by Dr. Umair Shah, followed by a biocontainment preparedness panel on Thursday and a beach clean-up on Friday.