Honoring the Class of 2025 at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics celebrated our Class of 2025 graduates during the annual Commencement Ceremony on May 14. Over 50 graduates from summer 2024, fall 2024, and spring 2025 walked the stage. Here is a list of the graduates that participated in the ceremony.
PhD Graduates
Ivan Coronado, PhD
Yifang Dang, PhD
Poonam Desai, PhD
Xubing Hao, PhD
Jianping He, PhD
Yan Hu, PhD
Yiming Li, PhD
Ko-Hong Lin, PhD
Yaobin Ling, PhD
Bingyu Mao, PhD
DHI Graduates
Erika Cavazos-Juarez, DHI
Gregory Olson, DHI
Sheena Rogers, DHI
Master’s Graduates
Dr. Bolanle Adebowale
Bahamin Akhtari
Vicky Beakley
Natasha Bills
Nirmala Bista
Heather Canales
Victoria Garcia
Soumya Jayaraj
Khaja Khan
Ines Kiam Andoun
Evandria King
Lauren Lapointe
Luis Lopez
Marka Lyons
Brenda Martinez
Marinna Melchor
Dr. Carla Mendoza
Jerren Mercy
Vanessa Mireles
Anna Motupalli
Gbemisola Olabode
Angel Otto
Usha Rijal
David Rocha
Ivie Rocha
Jadsia Roopchand
Dr. Lisa Schied
Raney Sharp
Cassidy Smith
Vyshnika Sriskantharajah
Alexis Symons
Divya Thomas
Adivella Tiluwa
Adriana Vargas
Deepthi Viswaroopan
Xinghua Wang
Lauren Watkins
Sylvia Wegwu
Amy Weldon
Eric Yang
Professor Todd Johnson, PhD was named the 2024–2025 John P. McGovern Teaching Award winner. He was selected by the students for his excellence in education and this is his second time earning the award.
Our 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient is Stephen Jones, MD, MS ’11. He is a medical informaticist dedicated to raising the standard of care for all patients worldwide. Currently, Dr. Jones serves as the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer for the Department of Surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital and Division Chief of Health Informatics in the Center for Outcomes Research at Houston Methodist Research Institute. He is also an Assistant Professor of Clinical Informatics in Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Please help us congratulate our awardees and the new group of McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics alumni. Our school is very proud of their achievements, and it was an honor to recognize each graduate. Please visit the McWilliams Commencement website to find photos and the recording of the 2025 ceremony.
McWilliams Bragging Points
Members of the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Community have recently achieved noteworthy accomplishments. We want to recognize and applaud these individuals.
- The spring 2025 Paul C. Boyle Award for Excellence in Student Research winner is MS Student Hira Tanwir. Her poster titled “Nexplanon and risk of Breast Cancer” earned the highest score at the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics poster session earlier this month.
- Photos from the poster session are available online.
- Miriam Barrett successfully defended her Doctorate in Health Informatics Translational Project on May 19 and will earn her DHI degree later this semester. We hope you will congratulate her!
- MS Alum Travis Miles, MD, MS ’25 has two co-authored papers that were recently published:
- Peter Kizza, DHI '23 recently earned an Outstanding Alumni Award from his other alma mater, the University of Central Florida.
2025 UT System AI Symposium Recap
Thanks to all the individuals who made the 2025 UT System AI Symposium in Healthcare a success. Whether you joined us as a speaker, panelist, attendee, or sponsor, your presence helped guide meaningful conversations around the role of AI in healthcare delivery, education, and research. We also want to thank staff members ShuRon Green, Marcos Hernandez, Queen Chambliss, and Sarah Kliebert (UT Health San Antonio) for their hard work handling the preparation and execution of the symposium.
If you were unable to attend, these items will help you recap the sessions.
Symposium Recap Video
Watch the recap
Watch the recap
Event Photo Gallery
View photos
View photos
Day 1 Video Recordings
Watch Day 1 sessions
Watch Day 1 sessions
Day 2 Video Recordings
Watch Day 2 sessions
Watch Day 2 sessions
Mental Health Services Offered at UTHealth Houston
May is national Mental Health Awareness Month. As such, UTHealth Houston wants to remind our community of the importance of support. Please remember that there are robust, safe, and confidential mental wellness services available to our students, trainees, faculty, and staff.
For more information, read this UTHealth Houston feature.
Registration Now Open for the
2025 CMS & HL7 FHIR Connectathon
2025 CMS & HL7 FHIR Connectathon
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is excited to announce the opening of registration for the 6th annual CMS & Health Level Seven International (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) Connectathon, taking place virtually July 15 to 17, 2025. This collaborative experience will bring together health care stakeholders for three days of learning, testing, and innovation.
Join developers, programmers, technology experts and analysts to learn about and test emerging FHIR Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and supporting FHIR Implementation Guides (IGs).
Technology implementers: If you have leveraged HL7 FHIR to build a server or application, we want you to bring your implementation to the event to test with us.
Healthcare payers and providers using third-party software: We encourage you to attend and share in the dialogue about how your implementations are going.
Register below and select a track from the CMS HL7 FHIR Connectathon Confluence Page. Registration is open through June 30, 2025.
McWilliams in the News
- Professor Jim Langabeer, PhD, EdD, MBA, EMT, was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle about the decline of opioid-related deaths in Harris county.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Important Dates
| June 19 | Juneteenth Day – University is closed |
| June 27 | Last day to drop with a withdrawal grade of "W" with Withdrawal Form |
| July 4 | Independence Day – University is closed |
Visit our website for a full list of research seminar dates and access to recordings for past seminars.
Office of Academic Affairs
7000 Fannin, Ste. 650 Houston, TX
Phone: 713.500.3591
Email: [email protected]
7000 Fannin, Ste. 650 Houston, TX
Phone: 713.500.3591
Email: [email protected]
