Heroes of Health Sciences
The St. Edward’s mission stresses the obligation of all people to pursue a more just world.
Our alumni in health sciences fields do just that: they care for vulnerable and marginalized patients; they bring mental and physical care to where they're needed most; and they work to create a more accessible health system for all. As part of Strategic Plan 2027, St. Edward’s is developing a new distinctive school and innovative academic programs in health sciences that will attract enrollment and produce graduates ready to meet community needs. This bold initiative builds on the university's tradition of academic excellence through programs that center access, inclusion and equity in addition to professional skills and leadership. Here, we highlight 19 of our alumni who make a difference every day in the lives of patients around the world.
A Guardian of International Public Health
A cluster of people in Houston get sick after eating at a fast-food restaurant. It turns out the tomatoes in their food, which came from Panama, were contaminated. How many other shipments of the tomatoes reached the U.S.? How many people are at risk of illness? The case quickly reaches the desk of Nelson Arboleda '94, Biology, who contacts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration as well as officials in Panama who can track down the tomato farm and contain the outbreak. Stopping the spread of a foodborne illness is all in a day's work for Arboleda, a physician and the director of the Americas within the Office Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Working with his counterparts in the 35 countries of the Western Hemisphere, Arboleda coordinates prevention and control efforts for the HIV epidemic and diseases such as malaria and cholera. His team also works as "disease detectives," tracking down the sources of outbreaks or of contaminated food. Arboleda and his colleagues work to mitigate the health impacts of climate change such as intensified hurricanes and extreme heat, as well as the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya. They craft measures to address a hemisphere-wide shortage of healthcare practitioners that leaves gaps in the workforce everywhere from crowded Rio de Janeiro to rural West Texas. And as violence and economic instability prompt more people to migrate toward the United States, Arboleda and his international counterparts try to ensure that migrants have access to immunizations, antiretrovirals for HIV, and care for their mental and physical health along their journey and at their destination. Arboleda, who holds advanced degrees in both medicine and public health, grew up in Miami and was recruited to the soccer team at St. Edward's. There, his interactions with students in the College Assistance Migrant Program opened his eyes to the challenges faced by people with fewer opportunities. As he moved into adulthood, he realized these experiences had attuned him to the needs of the disadvantaged, whomever and wherever they may be. "In our office, we're trying to meet people where they are — to improve their health and their access to health services," he says.
A Detective on the Trail of a Treatment
A native of Uganda, Elizabeth Kaweesa '13, Biochemistry, saw her community plagued by illnesses including HIV infection, tropical diseases and cancer. As a student at St. Edward's, she decided to use research to advance human health. In the lab of now-retired Professor of Chemistry Henry Altmiller, she studied how heavy metals could be transferred from contaminated soil into bean plants, which could have repercussions for people who ate the beans. She went on to earn a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Florida and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she works to combat ovarian cancer, the fifth-most-deadly cancer in women. Kaweesa screens compounds isolated from natural sources as new potential drug leads against ovarian cancer cell lines obtained from patient tumors. When a compound kills the cancer cells, she and her colleagues investigate what dosage is necessary and what mechanism is at work. The answers to those questions inform future research. Kaweesa also tests these drug leads against cell lines that have developed resistance to current chemotherapy treatments. "This will give us more insight into new drug treatments and therapeutic strategies needed for better prognosis, because cancer cells are pretty smart," she says. She also works with outreach programs that educate and support disadvantaged communities in Chicago with high rates of cancer. Through these initiatives, she hears the perspectives of cancer survivors who sometimes have struggled to access treatment. "It's one thing to do research on cancer, but it's another to sit down with people who have gone through treatment and hear how it affected them and their family," Kaweesa says. "It reminds me that the work I do is important."
The Mind-Body Connection
As she completes her doctorate in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University, Alicia (Torres) Marmolejo '18, Psychology, is interning at the Veterans Affairs healthcare center in Albuquerque, N.M. She works with veterans with severe mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression and severe post-traumatic stress disorder — a population she "fell in love with" during a St. Edward's internship at a group home for people with SMI. "It helped me realize there's so much more that can be done to help folks with SMI live a meaningful life with the right support," she says. Marmolejo plans to become a clinical psychologist and apply her training in mindfulness meditation to help veterans with SMI. Mayra Ortega '18, Behavioral Neuroscience, is a mental health therapist for middle and high schoolers in Fabens a small town a half-hour drive southeast of El Paso. Many of the families she serves lack transportation to the healthcare resources of El Paso, and many speak limited English. As the town's de facto ambassador for mental healthcare, Ortega attends health fairs and gently pushes back against the stigma that prevents some residents from seeking support. Ortega grew up in a small town in the region and understands the challenges Fabens residents face. "I'm able to provide some insight and give back to a community that's very similar to where I grew up, so I'm grateful to be here," she says.
An Advocate for the Disabled and Those at Society’s Margins
In 1979, pediatrician Chris Plauche- Johnson ’71, Biology, saw a young patient named Matt. The little boy was excited about going to a special summer camp for kids with disabilities — the same camp where Plauche-Johnson once had been a volunteer counselor. But at his next appointment, Matt cried as he explained camp hadn’t worked out. The staff had determined that his leg braces, multiple medications and the fact that he was on dialysis made him too complicated of a case. Matt’s tears were a catalyst for Plauche- Johnson, who had long dreamed of starting a camp for severely disabled children. Six months later, she brought Matt and about 30 other kids — along with a host of doctors, nurses and medical support staff — to a rented summer camp, where the children delighted in participating in modified sports, canoeing, swimming and horseback riding. It was the first session of the Children’s Association for Maximum Potential, or CAMP, for which Plauche-Johnson was the volunteer executive and medical director for 25 years. Plauche-Johnson’s concern for people with disabilities blossomed during her St. Edward’s years, particularly during a medical mission trip to Mexico with her advisor, Brother Daniel Lynch, CSC. She began volunteering at the camp for children with disabilities in the summers. After graduation, she worked as a dorm counselor at the Texas School for the Deaf, where she applied skills she’d developed as a resident assistant in East Hall. In 2007, as she prepared to retire as professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, Plauche-Johnson experienced a series of coincidences — sacred synchronicities, she calls them — that convinced her to start working with people who were homeless. She became a volunteer and later the director of the San Antonio Catholic Worker House, which provides meals, showers, a laundromat and mail service to the unsheltered. But the services didn’t get anyone off the street. Plauche-Johnson led a coalition that purchased the 17-acre site of a drive-in movie theater and began building tiny houses for clients who are at least 50 years old, disabled and chronically homeless. The property, called Towne Twin Village, opened in spring 2023 and houses 65 people. Eventually it will comprise 204 homes. With their basic needs met, residents can begin to think about living healthy, getting jobs, making new friends and reconnecting with family. “Health and housing are integrally related,” Plauche-Johnson says. “It’s hard to be healthy when you’re living on the street. And a home can really promote dignity and healing.”
