Sept. 10, 2020

Colleagues:

Please join me in congratulating Associate Dean for Research Ezemenari Obasi on receiving an $11.8 million federal grant for the UH HEALTH Research Institute as principal investigator! And congrats to PHLS Professor Lorraine Reitzel as director of the community engagement core!

The award from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities will establish the HEALTH Center for Addictions Research and Cancer Prevention, with the critically important mission to use innovative science and community-engaged research to save lives among marginalized and historically underserved populations in Houston and beyond.

Ezemenari and Lorraine have been doing important work through the HEALTH (Helping Everyone Achieve a LifeTime of Health) Institute since launching it in 2016, and this well-deserved grant will accelerate these efforts during this vital time in our nation’s history.

As Ezemenari said, “This is an infrastructural game-changer we will leverage to advance the health of our communities!”

Other key grant personnel include Fatima Merchant of engineering technology, Olivera Nesic-Taylor of biomedical sciences and Michael Zvolensky of psychology.

As we continue to strive to meet our “50 in 5” research goals, let’s remember the powerful combination of big ideas and hard, hard work.

Onward,
Bob