Student Spotlight

From pre-med student to Senior Health Planner, Igor Vouffo’s path blends persistence, global experience, and policy focus. Learn how UTMB SPPH shaped his journey and how he’s shaping public health across borders and systems.

Dr. Craig Kutz, a UTMB MPH graduate and flight surgeon at NASA, co-authored new research on ketamine’s potential use in psychiatric emergencies during long-duration space missions.

After caring for patients during Hurricane Harvey and COVID-19, Dr. Khamron Micheals now builds AI tools to predict asthma risk before hospitalization. His path from ICU nights to population-level research reflects a bold vision for smarter, more equitable respiratory care

From collecting bugs to coordinating clinical research, Betty Hernandez, MPH '25, has carved a path from entomology to health policy advocacy—shaped by pandemic response, fieldwork in El Salvador, and a deep commitment to health literacy and equity.

MPH student Allie Murphy reflects on her summer in Cambodia, where she helped evaluate a school-based health curriculum and visited three partner schools through her Global Health Practicum.

Dr. Yejin Kang, PhD ’25, MPH, is launching her career as a health services researcher focused on healthcare disparities. Her dissertation challenged diabetes stereotypes among Asian Americans, using data to drive more inclusive public health strategies.

Sandra Kum, MPH ’22, bridges data and advocacy in maternal health, public service, and mental health equity. Her work spans the CDC to startups—and now back to UTMB as a Delta Omega alumni inductee—with sights set on public health change in Cameroon.

After learning she was born at UTMB, Niki Razavi, MPH '25, found new purpose in public health. Now bound for law school, she reflects on how SPPH shaped her advocacy, research, and career goals.

After starting out as a pharmacy technician, Ebube Nwabuko, MPH, found her niche in pharmacoepidemiology. From navigating drug shortages to exploring prescription trends, she’s now using public health research to reimagine pharmaceutical systems—and shape a more just future.

Ejike Nwabueze, PhD, MS, MS, merges microbiology, epidemiology, and biostatistics to drive data-informed public health solutions. At UTMB, he built an R package to simplify NHANES analysis—saving researchers hours of work in just one line of code.

Biostatistics MPH alumna Ella Tamayo turned her love of numbers into public health impact—revealing surprising county-level links between food insecurity and child mortality, advancing antimicrobial stewardship in Texas, and championing creative, equity-driven data solutions.

UTMB researchers propose “attentiveness” as a framework to ethically include community partners in qualitative data analysis, challenging norms in public health research and shifting the power dynamic between academics and communities.