DoP Honors, Dec 2025
Sandy McKay, MD, FAAP, (above, 5th from right) was selected as the Outstanding Child Advocate for Houston, Gulf Coast, and East Texas at the Children at Risk Accolades luncheon.
Sarah Abercrombie, MHA/MBA, LSSBB, senior practice manager at UT Physicians, (pictured above, middle) won first place in the Wellness Initiative of Distinction from Employee Assistance and Well-being.
“Sarah promotes work-life balance by introducing staff to tools and strategies that help manage workloads. For example, she showed her team how to use Outlook’s ‘to-do list’ functionality for tracking patient-related tasks, allowing them to leave on time without worrying about losing track of work. She also finds creative solutions during staffing shortages: When a nurse went on maternity leave and no pediatric-trained float pool nurses were available for coverage, she leveraged float pool MAs to cover the clinic, giving permanent MA staff time to assist nurses with the high volume of Epic in-basket messages,” her staff said.
Zixiu Cheng, PhD, Wang Lab postdoctoral fellow, (pictured above) received a Travel Award at the 2025 Cardiovascular Science in Session.
Julianna Quinn, Wang Lab doctoral student, received an NIH F31 award for “Investigating the Role of Hippo Signaling in Sinoatrial Node Development”
Amaya C. Moss, Miller Lab graduate student, (above, third from left) defended her master’s thesis “The Localization of B-catenin during Xenopus Kidney Development.” Amaya plans to start the GSBS PhD program in Spring 2026 with a focus on cell signaling. Her goal is to become a professor and teach graduate students.