Awards & Recognitions

Kishor M. Wasan, Ph.D., is a world-renowned Canadian pharmacologist, pharmacist and professor who has received more than 25 awards for his contributions to health sciences.

Dr. Wasan graduated from the Pharmacology Ph.D. program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1993 and completed a period of postdoctoral training at MD Anderson later that year. Since then, he has led a successful research career focused on lipid-based drug delivery and the interaction between lipoprotein and pharmaceuticals.

In addition to publishing more than 550 peer-reviewed articles and abstracts, Dr. Wasan developed a novel oral formulation of Amphotericin B, or OAmB, to treat fungal and parasitic infections. This treatment is designed to be less toxic, and more cost-effective and accessible than its intravenous counterpart.

Dr. Wasan is currently a fellow of the prestigious Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He also is a fellow member of the Royal Society of Medicine (London, UK) and an elected member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society.

Before retiring from his academic career, Dr. Wasan was a professor and the dean of the University of Saskatchewan's College of Pharmacy and Nutrition from 2014-2019. He also had a long and successful academic career at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he first joined as a faculty member in 1995. During his time at UBC, he held several leadership positions, including associate dean of research and graduate studies at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, chair of pharmaceutics and national director of the Canadian Summer Student Research Program.

In 2021, Dr. Wasan received a Public Leadership Credential from Harvard Kennedy School. He is a founding member and currently co-director of UBC's Neglected Global Diseases Initiative and a distinguished university scholar adjunct professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. In 2024, he joined Med eTech Innovation as the new director and chief scientific officer (CSO).
 

Swathi Arur, Ph.D., professor, Genetics, co-directs the 14-week Foundations course that all students must complete as part of their program at the MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She also served as co-director of the graduate program in Genes and Development from 2015-2017. 

Arur redesigned the project management course for online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she played an instrumental role in the success of the school’s Journal Club class, paving its path to becoming a required course in critical thinking across the graduate school. She has also taught other courses, including developmental biology of the organism and a writing course focused on grant writing. 

Arur is a mentor for not only graduate students and postdoctoral fellows but for all junior faculty in Genetics. She has served on more than 60 graduate student committees and has welcomed more than 20 students and postdoctoral fellows into her lab. She creates an individual development plan for each mentee and meets with each one on a quarterly basis to address personal needs.

“I believe that by fostering a learning environment wherein students approach each concept and technology fearlessly, have opportunities to identify their errors and then develop strategies to rectify them helps to promote conceptual understanding and application,” she says.

Saadia Faiz, M.D., professor, Pulmonary Medicine, is chair of the Internal Medicine Education Committee at MD Anderson, the associate program director for the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship and rotation site director for Baylor College of Medicine Internal Medicine residents and medical students. She also is the founder of Southwest Regional BootCamp, an organization that brings together clinical educators to create shared resources for procedural education. She’s an active member of several education committees, including the American College of Chest Physicians, for which she has helped create teaching videos, webinars, podcasts, feedback evaluation forms, among other clinical education tools. 

Faiz instructs fellows in bronchoscopic and pleural interventions and designs the curriculum and teaching assignments for rotating sleep fellows, internal medicine residents and medical students. Her educational philosophy is inspired by her journey as a healer, teacher and learner, and her curriculum is built on five guiding principles: engagement, individualization, wellness and professionalism, diverse learning methods, and continuing education and mentoring.

“The constantly evolving technologies andtherapies create additional challenges, and even as educators, we are also continually learning,” she writes, adding. “Challenging myself with new educational initiatives and activities helps me evolve as a learner, teacher, and mentor.”

Awdhesh Kalia, Ph.D., professor, School of Health Professions, is highly involved in various activities that promote student success at the School of Health Professions. He oversees the development of the project-based integrated core curriculum initiative, which allows students to develop theoretical and practical skills through problem-based learning and runs the Diagnostic Genetics and Genomics Journal Club to help students better prepare for writing their thesis chapters. 

Additionally, Kalia has designed and implemented 13 graduate-level courses for the Diagnostic Genetics and Genomics program’s molecular genomics track and created a Python programming course for students. He delivers lectures for nine molecular track courses and supervises and/or advises more than 25 graduate students. 

The graduation rate for his program averages 98%; 100% of his students are extended job offers before or within two months of graduating, and 25% of them have gone on to enroll in Ph.D. programs.

 “I believe that personalized and participative experiential learning experiences are key to unlocking true understanding and fostering student growth. I understand the potential challenges that can arise from monotonous lectures and teaching labs, leading to disengagement and limited learning outcomes. Therefore, I strive to create an environment where my trainees actively participate in their own education,” he says. “By involving them in hands-on, goal-oriented teaching labs that tackle real-world diagnostic problems, I provide them with meaningful opportunities to apply what they have learned in the classroom. I firmly believe that when students are not afraid of technology or of making mistakes but learn from them, they develop stronger conceptual and technical foundations.”

Joya Chandra, Ph.D., professor of Pediatrics - Research, received this award in 2024.

As an alumna of MD Anderson UT Health Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS), Joya Chandra, Ph.D., understands the importance of education and supporting the next generation of cancer researchers. She’s known for her dedication to our students and trainees and their success, and she is seen as an outstanding educator by her peers and her mentees.

After graduating from the Cancer Biology and Immunology program at GSBS, Chandra completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Mayo Clinic before returning to MD Anderson as an assistant professor of Pediatrics Research in 2002. She rose to associate professor in 2008, with an additional joint appointment in Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis in 2013, and gained full professor status in 2021.

Within GSBS, Chandra is heavily involved in the Therapeutics and Pharmacology program and serves as a member of its executive committee. Well-known and respected among the students for her course  lectures, she is also sought after for participation on graduate advisory and examining committees, having served on more than 100 during her time on the GSBS faculty. During the 2019-2020 school year, she also served as president of the graduate faculty of the school, representing more than 600 faculty members during the beginning of the pandemic. Her quick assembly of a special committee to address all aspects of graduate education during the pandemic provided faculty input and recommendations on how to continue student research and education during that time.

Chandra is also highly skilled in translational research and training others in this impactful field. Because of this, she was named co-director of the Center for Clinical Translational Science TL-1 grant from the NIH and was later asked to serve on the executive committee for national TL-1 directors, and is now the chair of this committee, further highlighting her expertise in graduate education on a national level. In 2021, she joined a R25 NIH training grant for summer undergraduate research students as co-PI when the program moved from Smithville to Houston.

Her research focuses on cell signaling, oxidative stress, epigenetics and cell death as they impact leukemia and brain tumor therapeutics – especially novel therapeutics like small molecule inhibitors that target these pathways and have potential to improve outcomes in our pediatric patients. Another area of research focus is the impact of modifiable behaviors on treatment outcomes, with a clinical research program related to diet and nutrition for pediatric patients and survivors. This research has led to her serving as the co-director of our Center for Energy Balance and expanding her reach into patient education around nutrition and the impact of a healthy diet on cancer treatment.

For recognition of her outstanding efforts in education and dedication to students and trainees, the GSBS Graduate Student Association has honored her with the John P. McGovern Outstanding Teacher Award, and she has received a highest commendation for service to GSBS. Chandra has been awarded the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and has been inducted into the Kenneth I. Shine, M.D., Academy of Health Science Education.

The Rogers Award recognizes one employee who consistently demonstrates excellence and dedication to MD Anderson's mission to end cancer. The award rotates among the institution's four mission areas, so this award is given once every four years to a faculty or staff member who works in the area of Education.

Monica Johnson, program director, Patient Experience, was the recipient of the 2020 Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence in Education.

Ching-Wei David Tzeng, M.D., associate professor in Surgical Oncology, received the Emil J Freireich Award for Excellence in Education during Education Week 2024. The award recognizes the educational contributions of core teaching faculty who have shaped the lives of residents and fellows through mentoring, leadership, innovative teaching methods and true dedication to MD Anderson’s educational mission.

Tzeng’s investment in trainee success has garnered the admiration of his fellows and residents. His nominators describe him as exceptionally supportive and thorough in his education and training, often recording intraoperative videos and providing individualized performance feedback for each trainee along with goals for the next surgery.

One nominator wrote, “In my nine years as a post-graduate trainee, I have never received this level of personalized coaching from any of the dozens of attendings I have worked with. And he does this for all of us.”

Tzeng is currently developing a graduate medical education fellow mentorship program to maximize the benefit to trainees and optimize the process for faculty – this, in addition to all lectures and journal clubs and other activities he participates in -- to further support education and training. Tzeng’s trainees describe his drive as infectious, adding they hope to cultivate his passion for teaching, learning and growing as surgeons, educators and mentors.

Ralf Krahe, Ph.D., a professor of Genetics at the MD Anderson UT Health Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) is known as an exceptional teacher and mentor with a commitment to helping young scientists succeed. Over the years, he’s mentored and trained nearly 100 graduate and medical students, medical residents, postdoctoral fellows, undergraduate students and high school students. He’s directly supervised seven graduate students at GSBS and served as an instructor in more than 40 courses. In addition to his work directly with students, he’s also served as a leader within the school. He was director of the Human and Molecular Genetics program for many years and chaired the faculty committee which restructured the school’s overall programs, a huge task in which he was seen as a trusted leader throughout the balanced process.

Krahe was the chair of the Graduate Education Committee at MD Anderson for three years and he currently serves as the course director for the Genetics & Epigenetics GSBS graduate program flagship course for all program students, Principles of Genetics & Epigenetics. Additionally, he sits on the steering committee for the NCI T32 training grant for Translational Genomics in Precision Medicine and has been faculty on others. His nominators noted that he is caring, selfless, positive and one who is a voice of trust and empathy.

Kathleen Schmeler, M.D., associate vice president of global oncology in the department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, is known for her mentorship and support of education at all levels, including her service as a faculty advisor and as a dissertation committee chair. Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) is a virtual mentoring program, and Schmeler was integral to bringing it to MD Anderson in 2014. It has since been adopted by other faculty members; institution-wide, 20 programs now participate in Project ECHO.

In addition to piloting the ECHO program, Schmeler helped support trainees across different disciplines to create and establish the Global Cancer Care Track curriculum. She also served as the chair of the committee that developed the International Gynecologic Cancer Society Global Curriculum and Mentorship Program, which brings gynecologic oncology training to regions of the world that do not have formal programs in the field.

Schmeler and her team members create hands-on training programs in cervical cancer prevention. They have delivered numerous courses to hundreds of participants worldwide.

Isaac Graham, sergeant for The University of Texas Police Department (UTPD) at Houston, is known for his dedication as instructor and trainer for UTPD officers and members of the institution at large. As Training Department supervisor, he works diligently to both provide education and support to other officers doing the same. In addition to teaching more than a dozen courses in person, he has also designed and implemented online courses for many key topics, including mental health awareness, Narcan/Naloxone use, body worn cameras and Avigilon Security Camera training, which has been delivered to more than 300 users across MD Anderson and consistently receives positive feedback from learners.

Graham also provides crisis management and de-escalation training to nursing residents, the Rising Star program and other clinical staff, reaching more than 300 staff at MD Anderson and UT Health Houston each year. Additionally, he serves as an adjunct instructor for UTPD’s Police Academy in Austin, Texas where he provides training in numerous areas to new police cadets. 

During Trainee Research Day 2024, Varsha Gandhi, Ph.D., professor, Experimental Therapeutics, received the Robert M. Chamberlain Distinguished Mentor Award in recognition of her exceptional mentoring of postdoctoral fellows.

 Nominator and Experimental Therapeutics postdoctoral fellow, Natalia Timofeeva, M.D., wrote, “Dr. Gandhi convinced me that even though I didn’t have some skills I have a strong potential to learn, and if I am here, I fully deserve this. I feel my growth from a trainee to a scientist.”

 Another nominator wrote, “Dr. Gandhi connects me with experts for additional guidance. Initially uncertain about a scientific career, I now see it as my future director, all thanks to my mentor.”