Oriana Perez strives to make others feel welcome and supported.
Perez, who grew up along the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, hopes to improve Latino health and provide mentorship for others, just like her mother always did.
She puts this outlook into practice as a research coordinator at the Children’s Nutrition and Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, with an interest in adapting healthy lifestyle programs for use among Latinos. She also has served as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization, a health educator and screener at Interactive Health, Inc., a health educator at Methodist Health System, and a research coordinator for tobacco prevention projects for youth at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.
A few years after completing her bachelor’s degree in anthropology in 2004 and her master’s degree in public health promotion and education in 2008 at UT El Paso, Perez wanted to further her training and education.
So Perez applied for the Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. The program, led by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez at UT Health San Antonio with support from the National Cancer Institute, recruits 25 master’s-level students and professionals each year for a five-day summer institute to promote doctoral degrees and careers in Latino cancer.
“[The Éxito! summer institute] helped me view myself within the bigger context of other Latino students,” Perez said. “It helped me know and feel that I am not alone in this pursuit, there are others interested in my success.”
“Every minute of Éxito! is worth it!”
