Springer named 2025 Minnie Stevens Piper Professor

A devoted professor and researcher, Andrew Springer, DrPH, has been named a 2025 Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award recipient.

“The Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award recognizes outstanding educators in the state of Texas, and we are honored to have 12 recipients over the years in our faculty ranks,” said Kevin Morano, PhD, senior vice president of Academic and Faculty Affairs and Roger J. Bulger, MD, Distinguished Professor at UTHealth Houston. “Dr. Springer is another excellent addition to that roster.”

Springer is an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. In addition to other teaching accolades, Springer was most recently recognized by The University of Texas Regents as one of the system’s Outstanding Teachers in 2022. He is also a member of both the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living and the Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research.

“Dr. Springer exemplifies excellence in teaching, inspiring his students through his passion, mentorship, and dedication to learning,” said Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, MS, MA, dean of the School of Public Health, M. David Low Chair in Public Health, and Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics. “This award is a meaningful recognition of the lasting impact he has in the classroom.”

Ten Piper Professors are selected each year from among educators nominated by colleges and universities throughout Texas. Each receives an honorarium from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation in recognition of their effectiveness and dedication to teaching.

“I am incredibly honored to be among the recipients of the Piper Professor Teaching Award, with sincere recognition of my colleagues and the exceptional professors at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health,” Springer said. “As an eternal student of participatory learning and action, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to apply these methods and co-learn about the field of health promotion with graduate students in the U.S. and Colombia, Intervention Mapping teaching team colleagues, and community partners. ‘There is no teaching without learning’, Paulo Freire wisely once said. I am a proud learner of my students and community partners and look forward to sharing this award back with our UTHealth Houston community to further support our students.”

Springer has over 20 years of experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating child and adolescent health promotion programs, which began when he was a high school volunteer with a dental hygiene promotion project in rural Cajamarca, Peru. After leading an evaluation project in Guanajuato, Mexico, Springer developed a greater interest in program evaluation and quickly realized he needed more formal training in public health. This led him to complete his master’s and doctoral studies at UTHealth Houston.  

At UTHealth Houston, he co-teaches graduate-level courses in advanced methods for health promotion planning and community health promotion theory and practice, as well as a health promotion/behavioral sciences seminar. His recent research projects include the Youth-Led Community Health Learning Initiative, the Travis County Physical Activity Landscape Assessment, and Mapping Opportunities to Reduce Fatal and Serious Injuries on Roadways in Austin, Texas: Engaging Young People in Action Planning to Advance Vision Zero.

The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, based in San Antonio, was organized in 1958 and is a nonprofit charitable corporation that supports higher education in Texas through scholarships, grants, and other programs. The late Randall Gordon Piper and his wife, Minnie Stevens Piper, were the principal donors.