The Many Faces of UTHealth Houston: Asia Bright, PhD
A New York native, Asia Bright, PhD, originally fell in love with Houston’s landscape and southern flair while visiting during her junior year of high school. Still, it was her passion for impacting communities and UTHealth Houston that made her want to stay long term.
While in high school Bright visited her brother, a local schoolteacher, and passed what she thought was a local park. That’s when she noticed the stark difference between the cold, lethargic winters on the East Coast and the lush greenery of Houston.
That lush green park turned out to be Rice University, where she later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Bright didn’t know it then, but the paths she walked on the campus tour would ultimately lead her to UTHealth Houston.
“It was where I needed to be,” she said. “It was a great environment and academically challenging. Even with moving to Texas, I tell people all the time it was the first time I’d ever seen a cow in real life! That transition across country opened my mind in such a great way and I’m so grateful for it.”
Education and early career
After completing her undergraduate studies, Bright returned to the East Coast and joined the psychology PhD program at the University of Vermont.
Her initial career goals included becoming a clinical psychologist. However, after completing an internship that allowed her to see the daily obligations and the emotional toll that can come with the profession, she decided to adjust her plans.
“I was shadowing a clinical psychologist and would hear a lot of overwhelmingly heavy things,” she said. “I realized I didn’t have the stamina, and it was not what I wanted to do. But I joined a research lab during my sophomore year, and that’s what got me on my PhD track.”
After completing her master’s degree as part of her doctoral program, she then earned a PhD in experimental social psychology. “I was able to examine how the psychological manifests in behaviors, including physical health,” she said.
Health information access for everyone
After her first academic journal research publication, Bright remembers feeling proud, sharing the good news with her mother, and sending her the link to read it online. Her mom told her the article was behind a paywall and would require a fee to access it.
“That’s when it hit me,” she said. “I can be conducting all of this meaningful research, but the people who it affects have no way of getting to the information. The science community gave me all this support, but the marginalized communities that I was studying were never going to get the information.”
After some self-reflection, Bright soon decided to make a career pivot. “I wanted to do something where it impacts the community immediately,” she said.
The move to UTHealth Houston
After briefly working in the New Jersey health care system, Bright returned south and joined the faculty at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston in January 2020.
“I was drawn to UTHealth Houston, because they produced leaders in various health care fields,” she said. “We are more proactive versus reactionary in how we approach health.”
She is now director of the Office of Professionalism at McGovern Medical School and the Office of Student Affairs at UTHealth Houston, as well as an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the medical school.
“I can now apply the things that I learn through research and academics so that the students, or whoever my population is, can immediately benefit,” Bright said.
Health care from a different lens
Under Bright’s leadership, the Office of Professionalism recently revamped its service-learning initiatives for first- and second-year medical students.
Now called Professionalism Learning Underscored by Service, McGovern Medical School students evaluate various neighborhoods in Houston to identify social factors of health and integrate civic responsibility into the formation of their professional identity. Students also learn how to examine various cultures and their health values from the perspective of different organizations throughout the community.
“We want to get our students out of that habit of making assumptions when entering a community or meeting with patients,” Bright said, noting that even privileged patients and communities can have health disparities.
While this is still a new initiative, Bright said students are already changing how they view providing health care and serving communities. She hopes the initiative can one day be implemented across the health science center.
“I think many of our students come in with this kind of savior complex of ‘Let me help,’” she said. “After walking around a community and just listening to people who live there, they start to realize you can’t effectively help a patient or community without first understanding what they actually need help with. It encourages empathy and humility.”
Focus on students
As the director of the Office of Student Affairs, Bright is the leading force behind some of UTHealth Houston students’ favorite university-wide events.
They include Salutation — an activity at the beginning of each school year where students can network, learn about university student services, play games, and win prizes — and the annual Crawfish Boil, an event that encourages students to meet their peers from across campus while enjoying a crawfish dinner and games.
Navigating new personal milestones
A recent newlywed and new homeowner, Bright spends time painting interior walls and going through the home renovation process with her husband.
She is a foodie and says she loves to go out with friends and family and order large portions of food, but definitely not barbecue.
Bright enjoys riding her bike through her neighborhood and navigating the mishaps of learning how to care for her 2-year-old dog, Copper.
“If I had one piece of advice, it would be to get an older dog, not a puppy,” she said. “The things they don’t show you about raising a dog on social media!”