New Public Health Regional Dean Named for San Antonio

Students may earn masters degree in public health or enroll in new M.D./M.P.H. dual degree program

Sharon Cooper, Ph.D.

A graduate of The University of Texas School of Public Health has been appointed Regional Dean of the San Antonio Regional Campus, effective July 1, Dean Guy S. Parcel, Ph.D., has announced.

Sharon Cooper, Ph.D., returns to the UT School of Public Health from the Texas A&M University Rural School of Public Health, where she was professor and head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Orange and White Connections

In a memo announcing the appointment, Parcel said, “Many of you may remember Dr. Cooper, since she was not only a student here, but was a faculty member from 1985 to 2002, and assistant dean for academic affairs from 1999 to 2001. During her tenure at Texas A&M, she continued working with the faculty here at UTSPH, maintaining her orange and white connections.”

Cooper is a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and has been a consultant for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and a reviewer for a number of professional journals. Her funded research concerns the health and safety of adolescent migrant farm workers and the relationships between environment and cancer.

Lecture room at School of Public Health San Antonio Regional Campus

She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from UT Austin in 1973, a master’s degree in quantitative psychology from the University of Oklahoma in 1975, a second master’s degree in biostatistics and epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976, and a doctorate in epidemiology from the UT School of Public Health in 1982.

Cooper succeeds Frank Moore, Ph.D., associate professor, Management Policy and Community Health, who was appointed interim regional dean of the San Antonio Regional Campus in September 2006, and Stephanie McFall, Ph.D., associate professor, Behavioral Sciences, who served as interim regional dean from January 2004 through September 2006.

San Antonio Campus

The new regional dean said she is looking forward to working with the faculty, staff and students at the San Antonio Regional Campus and collaborating with those at Houston and the other regional campuses. “I’ll also look forward to working with other partners in San Antonio, for example, the community, the Health Department, UT San Antonio, and the UT Health Science Center-San Antonio,” she said.

Located near the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the School of Public Health’s San Antonio Regional Campus offers graduate level courses leading to the Master of Public Health degree.

A new M.D./M.P.H. dual degree program has been created to provide public health education to medical students in San Antonio. The program is designed as an integrated curriculum so that students can complete both degrees in four years with an option of a fifth year if students find the program too demanding. Students enroll in the School of Public Health the summer before starting medical school in order to complete at least two M.P.H. core courses

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