Our Impact

Group of staff and attendees pose for a photo in front of a UTHealth Houston School of Public Health backdrop at an indoor event.

UTHealth Houston, city advance health partnership

More than 200 students, faculty, and staff from across UTHealth Houston gathered at the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health building to attend the Houston Health Department open house on Oct. 8, bringing university community members together with public health practitioners to explore programs, build connections, and discover opportunities for collaboration.

Man in a dark blazer and light blue shirt smiling outdoors against a leafy green background.

$3.9M study expands implementation of classroom physical activity

A new $3.9 million NIH-funded study will expand testing of MAGIC (Movement for Academic Growth In Classrooms), an innovative implementation strategy to help elementary schools integrate more movement into the school day.

Sarah Felknor, DrPH, pictured in front of greenery and brick wall in background.

$8.5M grant supports next generation of worker health experts

UTHealth Houston School of Public Health researchers in the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health received an $8.5 million, five-year grant to strengthen education, research, and training for the next generation of professionals dedicated to protecting workers' health and safety.

Wendy Nembhard pictured in red blazer in front of white background.

Alumna named dean of Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health

Alumna Wendy Nembhard, PhD, has been named dean of the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where she has served as professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology.

Chuang Earns International Recognition for Research Improving Child and Family Nutrition

June 3, 2026

Ru-Jye (Lindi) Chuang, DrPH, MS, was recently awarded the Outstanding Research Award for Community Engagement from the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), a global community that promotes diet and physical activity research to improve health. This award recognizes Chuang’s groundbreaking, community-facing research that explores the impact and effectiveness of various nutrition interventions in pediatric populations.

UTHealth Houston School of Public Health Selected for Statewide Rural Hospital Leadership Initiative

Ginger Raya, EdD, MHA, MPA, (right) smiling in front of a classroom. (Photo by UTHealth Houston)

May 15, 2026

Houston, TX — UTHealth Houston School of Public Health has been selected to represent The University of Texas (UT) System in a new statewide initiative, the Texas Rural Hospital Officers Academy, designed to strengthen financial leadership and long-term stability of rural hospitals across Texas.

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Our Impact

UTHealth Houston GoPA!–GoPE! Summit: Advancing Physical Activity from Surveillance to Implementation & Policy

Epidemiology Career Seminar Series with Eileen Nehme, PhD

Dissertation Defense by Xingyan Li, MSPH: Hybrid Methods for Clustered Data in Randomized Eye Trials Under an Unified Design

Epidemiology Seminar

Dissertation Defense by Saswati Upadhyay: Neighborhood Opportunity and Pediatric Asthma in Harris County: A Mixed- Methods Study

Food is Medicine Interventions to Support Food & Nutrition Security: Where do we go from here?

Don't Fall for It

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Catherine Vaziri PhD(c), MPH: Molecular Ecology of Hard Tick Species in Texas

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Anjolaoluwa Olunaike MPH: Biculturalism & Vaping among Mexican-American College Students in Texas

Dissertation Defense by Qianzi Zhang, MPH: From index hospitalization to readmission: mortality, costs, and thirty-day readmission

Dissertation Proposal Defense by May Hashish, MD, MSc: Work-related risk factors for cardiometabolic and chronic kidney diseases

Dissertation Defense by Kai Jiang, MS: Bayesian Methods for Microbiome-Metabolome Data Integration

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Chidera Emeto, MA: Perinatal Social Support Among Black Families in Texas

Thesis Presentation by Ian Huh, BS: Association Between Physical Activity and Sleep Among 8th- and 11th-Grade Students

Student Flu Shots

Practicum Learning Contracts Information Session

Dissertation Defense by Bonifacio Vega II, MPA, BSHS: Culturally Tailored Responses to Food Insecurity in Maverick County

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Oladipo Kunle Afolayan, MS: Hybrid Statistical and Multimodal Deep Learning for Suicide Risk

Dissertation Defense by Lorena Macias-Navarro, MSc: Conversational Agents in Nutrition: Synthesis, Methods, and Evaluation

Dissertation Defense by Weixin Lu, MS: Ultra-Processed Food Intake, Sociodemographic Differences, and Early Cardiometabolic Risk

Dissertation Defense by Jinze Li: Wastewater-Based Surveillance of Gastrointestinal and Respiratory Viruses

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Michelle Pennington, MPH: Firearm-Related Suicide Among Professional Firefighters

Dissertation Proposal Defense by Chengyuan Yang: Statistical Methods for Multivariate Clinical Endpoints and Healthcare Records

2026 Texas Food Is Medicine Movement: From Plate to Policy Summit

Implementation Science Seminar - Advancing the Science of Sustainability in Implementation Science