Student Spotlight Celebrating our students’ achievements, impact, and excellence—inside the classroom and beyond.

Headshot of John Cooks smiling beside a concrete column outside a campus building.

John Cooks Envisions Community-Led Public Health Research

In the From the Dean Student Excellence Series, MPH student John Cooks shares how community knowledge, public health training and a musician’s ear can support resident-led research in Galveston County.
Three bioethics and health humanities students are seated as they take questions from the audience

Doctoral students take on farm labor, rural research and Katrina

Lorenah Vasquez, Peyton Swanson and Carmen Haynes presented dissertation research on August 27 at the Gulf Coast Bioethics Symposium at Open Gates in Galveston, on farmworker identity, rural enrollment in clinical research, and epigenetic studies of Hurricane Katrina survivors.
The 2026 SIBDS cohort and mentors pose together on the steps of a UTMB building.

Seventeen Scholars, Eight Questions at UTMB's Summer Biostatistics Poster Session

On July 23, 2026, the 17 undergraduates of UTMB's Summer Institute in Biostatistics and Data Science presented eight research posters in Galveston. Abby Black and Sarah Landers rebuilt lab reference ranges for research macaques; others studied transplant rejection, RSV immunity and burn outcomes.
Klarisa Lopez smiles in graduation regalia and a medal while standing on a dark wooden staircase.

Klarisa Lopez on Language as Part of Patient Care

Klarisa Lopez earned her MPH in bioethics at UTMB SPPH, reviewing 15 studies on medical interpretation and surveying Spanish-speaking patients in Harris and Galveston counties. Patients prefer in-person interpreters far more than they receive them. She's now preparing for medical school.
PASM participants in a conference room at Space Center Houston watch a projection screen showing a Soyuz rocket lifting off, with U.S. and Texas flags flanking the screen.

Commercial Space Day Shows Where Aerospace Medicine Can Lead

Participants in UTMB's Principles of Aviation and Space Medicine course heard from medical leaders at Blue Origin, Starlab, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space and Vast — and watched a graduate of UTMB's Residency in Aerospace Medicine launch to the International Space Station.
Monserrat smiles with her arms crossed in a university building while wearing a purple blouse.

Monserrat Hinojosa and the People the Data Leaves Out

MPH in Epidemiology graduate Monserrat Hinojosa turned a three-million-record study of latent TB and chronic kidney disease, a dengue surveillance protocol in Lima, and a program evaluation across five schools in Cambodia into a practice of reading data for the people it leaves out.
Griffin Baillargeon poses in graduation regalia with Dr. John Prochaska after the UTMB School of Public and Population Health commencement ceremony.

Griffin Baillargeon Turns Data Into Knowledge

Griffin Baillargeon finishes his MS in Biostatistics and Data Science at UTMB with a capstone on incorporating external control data in clinical trials under Dr. Jang's mentorship, a poster award at the Annual Forum on Aging, and a data analyst role at UTMB Correctional Managed Care.
PhD student Zhiwei Hu in the Ashbel Smith building

Zhiwei Hu Named a Jeane B. Kempner Scholar

UTMB doctoral student Zhiwei Hu has been named a Jeane B. Kempner Scholar for 2026-27. The award funds a year of dissertation research on how the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit relates to depression recognition, advance care planning, and hospice use among older adults with dementia.
Five UTMB Aerospace Medicine Residency graduates stand together in formal attire in front of a spacecraft capsule exhibit at Space Center Houston’s Starship Gallery.

UTMB Aerospace Medicine Residency Class of 2026

UTMB's Aerospace Medicine Residency graduated five physicians June 11 at Space Center Houston. The Class of 2026 — Lam, Mavratsas, Rodriguez, Schwartz, and Stephens — earned a Master of Science and capstones spanning spaceflight forensics, decompression illness, and dive medicine.
Interactive map of Texas titled “Nursing Home Health Inspection and Staffing Ratings,” showing rural counties in orange and urban counties in purple, with green markers across the state representing nursing home rating locations.

Recent MD/MPH Graduate Publishes Analysis on Texas Nursing Homes

Helen-Margaret Onuorah, a recent UTMB MD/MPH graduate, published a Daily Yonder analysis comparing rural and urban nursing home staffing and health inspection ratings across Texas.
UTMB residents in aerospace medicine hold up the RAM Bowl in victory.

UTMB Aerospace Medicine Earns Honors Across Residents, Faculty, and Alumni in Denver

UTMB Aerospace Medicine had a standout week at the 2026 Aerospace Medical Association meeting in Denver. Residents, faculty, and alumni earned 10 awards, repeated as RAM Bowl champions, delivered the Reinartz Memorial Lecture, and took leadership roles across four of the field's societies.
Anh smiles for a portrait inside a UTMB building, standing near a railing with large windows in the background.

Listening Before Solving: An MPH Graduate's Approach to Public Health

A student spotlight on Anh Truonghuynh, MPH '25 in epidemiology, who connected a Galveston community garden practicum and ILE research on reproductive law to a single through-line — public health works best when it starts from where people actually are.