Alumni Profiles

Basheerah Enahora ’15 MS NUT began her career in sales and marketing for IBM and Citigroup. She earned an MBA from Duke University and found success as a brand manager for Kraft and Golden County Foods.

But was the corporate world really where she wanted to be?

“I always had this love of nutrition,” said Enahora, who is now assistant professor of agricultural and human sciences and extension specialist at North Carolina State University.

“I just had this epiphany that I wanted to do something more fulfilling with my interest and excitement around food.”

The AHS master’s program in nutrition launched Enahora into a new, “more fulfilling” career. After graduation, she worked as a clinical dietitian nutritionist at Wake Forest Baptist Health Weight Management Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

She also used her business experience to start her own wellness practice for women, BE Nutrition. The practice, which has an active presence on social media, offers individualized holistic health and nutrition counseling with a focus on mindful eating, gut health and disease, stress reduction and weight management.

“Our mission is to empower women to understand true nourishment and look past the number on a scale as a measure of success,” she says on the BE Nutrition website.

In 2019, she took another big step: enrolling in the PhD program in nutrition at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. As a doctoral student, she co-authored five published articles and received a $25,000 award for her research as a Behavioral Intervention Scholar. She was also named a Minerva Scholar, the university’s highest award for doctoral students.

For her dissertation, Enahora assessed the effectiveness of an interactive virtual reality nutrition program for African American adolescents. She also worked with partnering organizations on how to use the program in the community.

“In research, we can develop interventions and programs where we can affect numerous people at one time, communities at one time,” she said. “I think it just really helps to advance the practitioner’s role.”

Enahora completed her PhD in August 2022 and moved into her latest role as a faculty member at North Carolina State. Her research will continue to focus on health disparities, nutrition and wellness among minority adults and adolescents. In her work with the Extension Service, she plans to enhance nutrition education, develop nutrition and culinary skills programs for minority adolescents and work with extension agents to build healthier schools and communities through collaborative partnerships. She will extend the reach of extension programs using technology like texts and apps.

“I definitely find joy and passion around intervention development, particularly with youth,” she said.

This article was adapted from a UNCG News article by Rachel Damiani, University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Esmeralda Vazquez ’03 MS ’15 OTD is a “lived experience expert” for the National Hemophilia Foundation.

It’s a fitting title. Vazquez, who has an ultra-rare inherited bleeding disorder, is a community voice for others with similar conditions who are struggling to navigate the disparities of a complicated health care system.

To honor her advocacy, the hemophilia foundation named her 2022 Mary M. Gooley Humanitarian of the Year.

“Within the inheritable bleeding disorder community, Esmeralda Vazquez’s name is synonymous with health equity and patient-centric care,” the award citation read. “Through her championing of subject matter expert voices (particularly those of BIPOC community members) and her work embedding patient input within the research process, Esmeralda Vazquez has dedicated her life to ensuring that everyone’s voice matters within the inherited bleeding disorders community’s paths.”

Vazquez is an occupational therapist with her own Early Intervention Program practice, Stepping Stones Therapeutics. She works with children up to 3 years old and their families, making home visits to clients in the Back of the Yards and Englewood neighborhoods.

She is also an OT in the wheelchair and seating clinic at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and works as needed as an inpatient pediatric OT at Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Vazquez grew up in a Spanish-speaking family on the South Side. Her practice focuses on underserved populations in low-income neighborhoods—immigrant families like hers who face language and cultural barriers to resources, especially health care.

“It helps me understand the socioeconomic stresses they experience,” she said.

“I feel like I’m a more empathetic health care provider, because I understand the health care disparities that people experience.”

Vazquez has Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia, an inherited disorder that causes prolonged or spontaneous bleeding. It affects 1 in 1 million individuals worldwide. Her brother also has the disorder.

Her condition is stable now; she’s planning a hiking trip to Easter Island next year.

“But I spent a lot of my childhood hospitalized. I grew up in in the hospital,” she said.

“It led me to the field of occupational therapy. Being familiar, as a patient, with the health care system has informed my practice in occupational therapy and my work with the National Hemophilia Foundation. And occupational therapy helped me become a better advocate in the bleeding disorders community.”

Having a rare disorder also means Vazquez must constantly advocate for herself.

“Many health care providers don’t understand the disease, so I have to educate them if I need a procedure like getting my wisdom teeth out. I have to be aware of insurance and how our health care system works. Because I’m in health care, I can navigate that more easily people who aren’t, like my brother.”

The hemophilia foundation, which has awarded about $22 million to bleeding disorders research, is developing a more patient-centered research agenda in partnership with people who have bleeding disorders and their families.

Sharing patient input is an important part of Vazquez’s mission.

“All those social determinants of health that I experienced, all that I do in the community—I bring that knowledge to the National Hemophilia Foundation and say, ‘These are the communities you are trying to serve.’

“One of the main things that I do is bring that minority voice to the table.”

Briana Bonner ’16 MS OT wants to spread the word about occupational therapy around the world.

After four years of practice in the Chicago area and Texas, she made the leap to follow her dream: starting an outpatient clinic providing occupational therapy in Gabarone, capital of Botswana in southern Africa.

“I love it here,” she said.

Her recent doctorate in occupational therapy from the University of Texas Medical Branch will help her go even further.

“I want to help create occupational therapy programs in Botswana and neighboring countries that don’t have them,” she said.

Bonner first came to Botswana for a study abroad program as an undergraduate at Truman State University.

“It was the experience of a lifetime,” she said. “It was amazing, seeing everyone around me look like me.”

Bonner was surprised to learn that Botswana had facilities for children who were deaf or blind, but few services for other disabilities. She returned to the U.S., wondering what she could do to change that.

She hadn’t decided on a career, but “I told one of my mentors what I wanted to do, what I was passionate about and what I saw in Botswana, and she said, ‘You’re an occupational therapist.’

“And I realized, I can totally be myself and sing and dance and act—doing the things I love, while also helping improve somebody’s quality of life.’”

When it came time to choose an OT program, Bonner wanted to return home to Chicago. From the first time she visited the UIC campus, “everybody was just so welcoming,” she recalled.

In her final year of the OT program, AHS Magazine asked Bonner to interview Winifred Scott ’57 BS OT, former OT professor and department head, who had just endowed a scholarship fund for students committed to working in the Black community. Like Bonner, she was one of a small number of Black students in her OT class.

Scott became a mentor, attending her young colleague’s UIC graduation and staying in touch as she began her career. The two share a commitment to increase diversity in the field of occupational therapy.

“I hope to mentor other minority students,” Bonner said. “With my doctorate, I will be able to go more places to educate about occupational therapy.”

Bonner’s clinic, Meribah Occupational Therapy Solutions, had its grand opening in October 2020. “Meribah” is named for the place in Biblical text where Moses struck a rock with his staff to produce water for the Israelites.

“We wanted the clinic to be a place that meets a need for the community, just like Moses provided the needs for his people,” she said.

The clinic sees about 50 patients as it continues to grow. Bonner specializes in pediatric therapy, but she sees both children and adults because there are so few OTs in Botswana.

Autism is not well understood or recognized in Botswana, and working with children who have autism and their families is especially rewarding, Bonner said. In fact, this was the focus of her doctoral dissertation.

“We continue to spread awareness about, not only occupational therapy, but disability,” she said.

Bonner’s biggest challenge: funding. Many people can’t afford private occupational therapy and access to public services is low.

But she is confident about the future.

“I’ve been in school my whole life. I’m excited to take the next step, now that I’ve obtained all this knowledge.

“I said, I think I’m ready to stretch out and open up a clinic. Let’s see where life takes me.”

When Alison Liddle ’98 BS PT was a kid, if she didn’t have after-school activities, she volunteered at the pediatric nursing home where her mother worked.

Volunteering was integral to their family life and she loved spending time with the children who lived at the facility.

“I thought, ‘I could do this for the rest of my life,’” says Liddle.

And she has.

Liddle’s mission is to bring access to health care to underserved populations. She is founder and CEO of M Street Pediatric Therapy, which brings early intervention services to the homes of children with developmental delays and disabilities in the greater Chicago area.

Her staff includes 34 therapists who provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, feeding and lactation support, nutrition counseling and behavioral support. Two staff members handle the business end.

Liddle and her twin, Alisa, who are biracial, were adopted from foster care as toddlers and grew up in mostly-white Bloomingdale.

When it came time for college, both enrolled at UIC; Alisa studied business and Alison chose physical therapy.

“I found a home at UIC. I found a place that appreciated diversity and welcomed it.”

After graduation, Liddle began her career at Cook County Hospital.

“I learned a lot about the inequity of health care,” she says. “We think people have access to care, but that’s not always true. Sure, you can get physical therapy at County, but if you can only get an appointment every six months, that’s not access to care.”

Frustrated with the system, Liddle enrolled at the University of Chicago for a master’s degree in health policy and administration.

“UIC prepared me to be a physical therapist, but I didn’t have the bigger picture,” she says. “I was interested in learning more about how systems work together.”

While she was in grad school, Liddle continued her PT practice, taking referrals to provide in-home early invention for high-risk infants on the South and Southwest sides.

Visiting clients at home was an eye-opening experience.

“I’ll be honest. Working in the clinic, you make assumptions about why somebody doesn’t do what’s in their best interest. ‘Why aren’t you doing the exercises we gave you?’

“Then you go into their home and realize they live in a basement, in one room with concrete floors, and it is freezing. Their environment is going to dictate how well they will be able to carry out the recommendations I’m making.”

As Liddle completed her master’s degree, “it became very clear that I would have to choose: do I want to continue to be a clinician, or do I want to transition completely to this other world of public policy?”

She realized she loved the challenges and opportunities of providing in-home early intervention care to children and their families. She also saw the isolation and lack of support for clinicians who provide in-home care.

So she combined what she learned from her two degrees and started her own agency.

The health care system needs more therapists doing early intervention in underserved neighborhoods—especially practitioners of color, Liddle says.

“When you look at the amount of diversity within physical therapy, it’s embarrassing.”

That’s one reason training and mentoring students from UIC, Northwestern, Midwestern and Rush universities is important, she says.

She praises AHS faculty for connecting her with outstanding students and alumni, many of whom have joined M Street as interns or staff.

“I wouldn’t be in the place that I am, had I not gone to UIC,” Liddle says. “My educational experience at UIC set the professional foundation for my life, and I’m forever grateful.”

When Amar Patel ’07 BS HIM started college, he wanted a career in health care, but he was also interested in business.

He found just what he was looking for with a degree in health information management.

His career offers the best of both worlds, says Patel, manager of client success at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, one of the world’s top health care IT companies.

“You get to work on the business and technology side of health care, and you get to interface very directly with the clinician,” he said.

Patel’s team works with ambulatory care providers—both small clinics and large medical groups—to implement Allscripts’ TouchWorks electronic health records platform.

“I always enjoy talking to clinicians and hearing them say, ‘Now that I have this software, I’m not taking home a bunch of papers every night.’ And patient care is improved because they have the data they need.”

Patel, who grew up in Des Plaines, graduated from Maine West High School and took some of his prerequisite courses at Oakton Community College before enrolling at UIC.

He already felt comfortable there. His father had been a CT technician at UI Health and as a kid, Patel often came along when his dad was called in on weekends.

Not long after Patel started the HIM program, electronic health records “really started taking off,” he said.

“It was a right time, right place type of scenario. I was always interested in technology and innovation and I knew I could pivot, not into a traditional, medical records health information management role, but into something different in health care.”

The week after graduation, he started working at Allscripts. He found the job through networking with other HIM alumni. Since then, he’s hired and mentored other grads, including Navjot Singh ’14 BS HIM and Sara Baig ’13 BS HIM.

“UIC prepares you to hit the ground running,” Patel said, praising faculty members like Karen Patena, HIM clinical associate professor.

He has only good things to say about his field, which offers travel, flexibility and the challenge of solving problems to improve health care delivery. Most of his career has been at Allscripts, although he also worked at Joint Commission Resources and RightSourcing Inc.

“Every day is different,” he said. “I’ve never had to be in an office Monday through Friday.”

In his first job, as implementation consultant, “my role was to help hospitals and health care organizations implement their EHR. This meant looking at all sorts of things that would impact their workflow, coming from paper to electronics. My job was helping them get the application up and running.”

Now he manages a team of implementation consultants.

“To be able to provide leadership and mentorship, to guide them to be better consultants, is one of the pieces that I really like about my job. I enjoy innovating health care and mentoring my team.”

A spirit of adventure and a desire to help others has already taken Litany Esguerra ’18 BS RS from suburban Glen Ellyn to Chicago, Washington, D.C., the Philippines, England and India (twice).

She’s not one to travel a straight line from Point A to Point B. The turns in her path have led her toward a different career than she first envisioned.

“I’m very goal oriented, as opposed to being a planner,” says Esguerra.

“My goal is to work with people, to find a way that my work can contribute to their empowerment. It’s important not to plan every step of the way, but to be strategic.”

When Esguerra, a first-generation Filipino American, came to UIC, she felt at home right away.

“I wanted to go to a campus where diversity wasn’t just a marketing a tool. I connected with lots of other students who were first- and second-generation Americans juggling responsibilities between families, school and jobs.”

The daughter of a nurse and a pastor, Esguerra majored in rehabilitation sciences with plans to become a physical therapist. In her junior year, wanting a break from her science courses, she spent a study abroad semester in New Delhi.

“I needed to do something completely different, to go someplace I wouldn’t otherwise visit,” she says.

The program focused on public health, policy and community.

“In the classroom, we learned about public health in India. Then we’d go to a crowded hospital. Seeing that first-hand was eye opening—until then, I didn’t understand what access to health care really meant.”

For her study abroad research project, she worked with an organization that supplied free prosthetic limbs to the very poor.

When she returned home, her career focus had shifted to disability and access to health care around the world.

After graduation, Esguerra went to Washington, D.C. First, she spent three months as a public policy intern with the National Disability Rights Network, focusing on employment discrimination.

“I had learned about barriers to accessing employment for people with disability through my minor in disability studies, and I applied some of the knowledge I had gained,” she says.

Her next step: four months as an intern on the research and legal team with the Obama Foundation, where she created in-depth reports on potential foundation partners.

“I wanted to work in a mission-oriented organization but learn a completely different skill.”

After she completed her Obama internship, she spent the summer in Manila, where she was an outpatient rehabilitation volunteer at a hospital serving the urban poor.

Then Esguerra returned to India for six months as a community health intern with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, an NGO that helps the rural poor through a community-based approach to health care and development.

“It was exciting to be in D.C. around other passionate young people, but I wanted be out there, not at a computer screen, to see how people are trying to create better conditions for empowerment,” she says.

In rural Jamkhed, Esguerra did a little bit of everything. She coordinated care plans with international medical teams, worked on donor partnerships with other NGOs, helped with mobile health services, quantified data for grants and served as a communications and general point person for visitors.

Her internship solidified her desire to work towards empowerment and inclusion for people with disabilities on an international level—which took her to graduate studies at the University of Leeds, where she just completed a master’s in disability studies.

Now she’s back at UIC as part of the team developing the UIC Certificate in Co-Operative Career Experience, a federally funded program in the Department of Disability and Human Development. Students with intellectual disabilities will attend classes at UIC through the two-year certificate program, which prepares them for a career in their chosen field.

Her long-term goals? A Ph.D. in health sociology with a disabilities focus, then a position at a university or the World Health Organization, working on health issues in India, the Philippines or “wherever they need me.”

Esguerra has covered a lot of ground in the last few years—in mileage and experience. She said her studies in rehabilitation sciences were a great place to start.

“My major was a stepping stone for exploring anything related to health care,” she says. “Our professors encouraged us to pursue unconventional topics and opportunities.”

Esguerra says two faculty members were especially helpful: retired AHS associate dean Demetra John and clinical professor Michelle Bulanda.

“They were very influential mentors,” she says. “I really appreciate how much encouragement and support they gave the students—so much love and respect.”

The knowledge Savannah Soppet ’17 BS KINES gained in the classroom and the laboratory helped get her admitted to the UIC College of Medicine. The lessons she learned on the softball field, she uses every day.

“Time management. Teamwork. The mental aspects of getting through something that’s really hard—to push through, focus and grind it out,” she says.

Most of all: “You have to be prepared for whatever is thrown at you, and be able to react.”

A native of Beecher (pop. 4,300) in Will County, Soppet was a three-time high-school conference winner when she was recruited by the Flames.

“Chicago was a culture shock at first, but I needed to get out and see the world.”

Soppet started as a biology major, then switched to kinesiology.

“My second year I took anatomy, and I couldn’t see myself sitting in a biology class any longer. I liked the science and the sports aspect.”

An outstanding student-athlete, she had one of the team’s top batting averages and a perfect GPA that kept her on the Horizon League Honor Roll. She didn’t consider becoming a physician until she worked as an undergraduate research assistant with Joseph Colla, associate professor of emergency medicine.

“‘You’re going to medical school,’ he told me. ‘You’re going to be disappointed if you don’t,’” Soppet remembers.

Because of her softball schedule, Soppet couldn’t apply to medical school as a senior. She took a gap year, working as a medical scribe in the emergency department at Advocate Trinity Hospital on the Southeast Side.

She plans to practice emergency medicine, eventually specializing in critical care. Her undergraduate studies in kinesiology gave her a solid foundation in the importance of wellness and preventive health care, as well as social and other determinants of well-being.

Kinesiology faculty members she recalls as especially influential include Craig Horswill, Lisa Chin Goelz and Michael W. Jones ’10 BS KN, ’13 MS KN, ’13 DPT, former director of the human cadaver lab.

Her gap year didn’t set her back, Soppet says—it pushed her forward.

“I think the best physicians are the ones who have experienced the world first,” she says.

“Technology should translate to better patient care,” says Raja Talati ’14 MS HI.

As a physician, teacher, researcher and medical information officer, Talati is well-equipped to make that happen.

He was recently promoted to colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he is functional champion and chief health informatics officer at the Defense Health Agency, a joint integrated combat support agency of the Army, Navy and Air Force medical services.

“My coursework at UIC provided me with a rich background in health IT,” says Talati. “Without my training at UIC, I think this position would not have opened up to me.”

Talati was previously chief of aerospace medicine in the Air Force Reserve at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He is clinician and chief medical information officer at Midway Specialty Care, a nonprofit practice for HIV and other infectious diseases with offices in Florida and Guyana.

As a primary care physician, he has practiced in many different settings: urgent care, juvenile detention, multidisciplinary outpatient clinics and hospitals.

In April 2020, he served a two-month deployment at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where he and his Air Force team helped care for COVID-19 patients. In July, he helped treat Florida’s surge of COVID patients at a hospital near his practice in Ft. Pierce.

Everywhere Talati looks, he sees potential technology solutions for problems in health care practice.

“IT can and will help make health care better, but we haven’t found that sweet spot yet,” says Talati.

He has high praise for the UIC health informatics program, with its strong foundation in IT governance and data security. The degree has helped expand his career, he says.

“I get to see patients, I get to play with computers, I get to create new knowledge. What more could somebody ask for?”

Arnold Lee ’10 BS KINES knows how lucky he is.

A longtime Chicago sports fan, he has a dream job—assistant athletic trainer for the Chicago Bulls.

“I didn’t think that your passion and your career could be the same thing,” Lee says.

Lee started UIC as a pre-dentistry major, but he found his career path in an introductory kinesiology class taught by Karrie Hamstra-Wright, KN clinical associate professor.

“Karrie had such an impact on the direction of where I wanted to take my career. I don’t think she really knew how much impact she had,” says Lee.

The experience of Lee’s father, who had moved to the U.S. from South Korea, was another influence. Although he had an MBA in his native land, his career aspirations were stymied by the language barrier and an immediate need to support his family. At one point, he worked three manual labor jobs to make ends meet.

“He was forced into this career to provide for his family,” Lee says. “That was always ingrained in me.”

After graduating from UIC, Lee earned an MS in athletic training at California Baptist University. In his first job, as athletic trainer at Kennedy-King College on Chicago’s South Side, many of his students used sports to access higher education and emerge from poverty.

“I formed so many bonds that I could never replace,” he says. But after three years, “on a career level, I felt like I wasn’t growing, like I needed to move on.”

Lee considered switching careers; he was newly married (to Jane Ahn ’11 LAS) and felt the responsibility of providing for his own family.

Then he got an athletic training internship with the Chicago Bears for summer training camp and preseason.

“I found the joy in my career again,” he says.

He was hired as head athletic trainer for the Windy City Bulls, the Chicago Bulls Development League Team in the NBA G League. A year later, he moved up to become Bulls assistant athletic trainer in 2017.

Lee, who is a certified athletic trainer, strength and conditioning specialist and corrective exercise specialist, works to keep the Bulls in top physical shape during the playing season and in the offseason. Before each game, he stretches the players and does tissue work. Throughout the year, he also leads injured players through therapeutic exercises and, along with the strength coaches, monitors them in the weight room.

“I love helping people return to health and the bond that you form with your athletes,” he says.

Ryan Parrey-Munger ’13 PhD DS is lecturer and acting director of the Disability Studies Certificate Program at Eastern Washington University (EWU).

In his current position, Ryan helped develop a disability studies minor at EWU while continuing to develop new course offerings. He is also involved in building relationships with community partners and developing service-learning projects with those organizations. Describing himself an activist-scholar, Ryan’s research interests are in social interactions between people with and without disabilities.

Ryan believes DHD helped him to grow as a disability studies academic. He credits the interdisciplinary setting at DHD with developing a teaching style that works with people from a variety of disciplines and with diverse career trajectories. He appreciated being able to work with and beside scholars, activists, and professionals with such varied backgrounds, which has helped him network with colleagues across his campus.

Vladimir Cuk ’07 MS DHD is currently the executive director for the International Disability Alliance (IDA) based in New York. IDA is an alliance of over 1,100 organizations from 14 global and regional networks that encompass 180 countries that works to promote the rights of people with disabilities, particularly the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development within the United Nations framework.

As the executive director, Vladimir supervises staff in New York and Geneva as they work together to promote the rights of people with disabilities, provide technical assistance, and provide a unified message regarding human rights and disability across multiple stakeholders, including the UN and its member states, civil service organizations, and various disability organizations.

Vladimir came to DHD because the department’s multidisciplinary approach helped increase his ability to advocate for people with disabilities internationally. He appreciated the breadth of academic approaches that the department offered while focusing on disability. Vladimir credits DHD for the opportunity to get a formal degree related to disability because of the recognition and credibility that it offers.

The degree helped him obtain his current position and his experiences in DHD improved his confidence to work in a variety of different settings. The knowledge and experience that he received in DHD will continue to be integral to Vladimir’s success in advocating on an international level for the human rights of people with disabilities.

While pursuing a bachelor’s in psychology at UIC, Sara Burnett double minored in sociology and disability and human development. She recently reached out to to thank DHD for the impact the program had on her personal and professional life.

In her letter Sara explains, “before taking DHD classes I had the stereotypical view of people with disabilities, which I am ashamed to admit. If it were not for the DHD program I would have carried my previous ignorance into my career working with people with disabilities. Instead I was able to gain an amazing understanding of disability culture, history, and rights which I was then able to pass on to others.”

After moving to Colorado, Sara started a job as a special education paraprofessional. However, she quickly found she was “embarrassed” by the program’s lack of funding and “understanding and education.” She explains, “the administration had little respect for the special education department, which then negatively affected how the team could help the students.” Sara resigned from her position to look “for work elsewhere to grow personally and professionally.”

Sara is now “super excited to have the opportunity to work with a social services company called Sample Supports located in Northern Colorado. They believe everyone has a right and space in the community and no one should be institutionalized… They never say ‘no’ to taking on new clients, no matter the prior behaviors or offenses, and truly believe in protecting and respecting every client’s human rights.”

Appreciative of the undergraduate program at DHD, Sara explains, “as I continue down this professional path I know for a fact I would not be able to provide this community with the support I do if it were not for the DHD program at UIC. Personally, I think every person should have to take at least one DHD course because it could change the world! Until then I will personally try to provide trust, confidence, and happiness to every person I work with and to educate the general public in the process. The work DHD does is making an impact one person at a time and I am so thankful for what you have provided for me!”

When the champion Chicago Blackhawks head onto the ice, they know Mike Gapski is behind them.

Gapski, a 1982 graduate in physical education (the forerunner to today’s kinesiology program), is head athletic trainer for the three-time Stanley Cup winners. He was recruited by the Blackhawks in 1987, after four years as a trainer at UIC.

“I’ve been a Blackhawks fan my whole life,” he says. “I consider these guys my friends, not just people I work with.”

Gapski says he’s always on call. “On a game day, typically, we’ll get in at 8 in the morning to treat guys who need treatment. After practice and the pregame skate, players go to lunch, and I do my paper work. At about 4 o’clock, the guys come back, and we do whatever we have to do to get ready for the game. If it’s a home game with a 7:30 start, I usually leave [the United Center] at about 11:30 or midnight.

“For away games, we travel as soon as the game ends. Right after the game, we’ll do our treatments really quick, then jump on a plane. We’ll do treatments again on the plane. And we get to our hotel rooms between 1 and 3 in the morning.”

Despite the demanding schedule, “I don’t look at it as a job; I look at it as fun,” Gapski says. “You can’t be a phony in this job. You have to truly care about the guys, truly care about the team.”

When he started college, Gapski was interested in applied sports nutrition. He sought out a career counselor who introduced him to several exercise physiologists and then-UIC head athletic trainer Carol Humble. Their advice started him on the career path that led to the Blackhawks.

“You have to continue to learn all the time because complacency will get you nowhere,” he says. “Doesn’t matter if it’s your first year or 20th year, you always look for some way to better yourself, some way to help the guys out.”

Luca Badetti, a 2015 PhD graduate in disability studies, is Chicago community life director for L’Arche, an international organization of residences for people who have intellectual disabilities.

L’Arche Chicago maintains two residences — Angel House on Chicago’s West Side, and Peace House in Forest Park — with a third scheduled to open this year. Each residence is home to four people who have intellectual disabilities, ranging in age from their 30s to 70s, and three or four assistants.

Financial support comes from state funding and contributions from donors.

In the L’Arche communities, “disabilities labels lose their hold, and the emphasis is on the person,” says Badetti.

Besides Chicago, he’s lived in L’Arche residences in Boston, Washington, D.C., Rome and Trosly-Breuil, France, where the organization began in 1964. Today, there are 147 L’Arche communities in 35 countries.

Badetti presented a TedX Talk in Bend, Oregon, last April, about his four years in L’Arche.

“You can learn to know what it is to be human, and to grow into that,” Badetti says. “There is a simplicity, a living from the heart rather than just the mind, an honesty, and a slower sense of time that I think pinpoints what are the great things about being human.”
As community coordinator, “my role is to support community life, spiritual life and quality of life of the people in the community,” he explains.

His duties range from training assistants to organizing celebrations. “We cook together, go to events in the city, watch TV, pray and hang out.”
Badetti grew up in Rome and Milan before moving to the United States with his parents. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville and a master’s from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences.

By living only with people who are like ourselves, “we’re missing a chance to open our hearts,” he says.

“I hope L’Arche can be a sign of peace, a sign that it’s possible and great to live together in our similarities and in our differences.”

The passport for Brian Taliesin, a 2013 master’s graduate in health informatics, is covered with entry stamps from Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia and Zambia. He’s visited Tanzania more than 12 times in the last three years.
Taliesin travels to transform lives. He is senior program officer and systems analyst for PATH, a Seattle-based global health organization, working to improve vaccine availability and accessibility in sub-Saharan Africa.

Although vaccines against illnesses such as polio, tuberculosis, rubella and tetanus have been around for years, these preventable diseases are still killers in many developing countries. Taliesin works on the Better Immunization Data Initiative team, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative forms partnerships with countries to develop improved systems for collecting and using immunization data, so those who need vaccines actually get them.

“Health informatics is the connection among people, data and technology,” Taliesin explains. “We want to improve these connections to make a better system.”

Health workers at Tanzania’s 6,000 clinics were already collecting data on immunizations before the initiative started in 2013, but the process was error-prone and time-consuming. Data that could have predicted disease outbreaks was lost in mountains of paperwork. Some clinics experienced vaccine shortages when supplies were available elsewhere.
The initiative began implementing a national immunization registry. At birth, each child is issued a unique identification number on his or her health card. When the child arrives at a clinic for a vaccination, a health worker scans the ID number into an electronic system. In clinics without access to electricity or the internet, health workers complete paper grids for each child vaccinated, scanned later at another location.

“The registry helps with monitoring patient schedules, predicting supply needs, scheduling clinics and general forecasting,” Taliesin says. The initiative’s goal is to follow 2 million Tanzanian children annually.

Kids love superheroes. Kids need to live healthier lives. Would they listen to a bunch of pumped-up pre-teen comic characters who save the planet while delivering messages about the values of exercise, nutrition and a healthy lifestyle?

Wowie zowie yes!, says Eric Meredith, founder of Health Heroes comics and a three-time UIC graduate (1994 bachelor’s degree in business, 2012 master’s in nutrition, 2015 master’s in education).

“What you do as a child plays a big role in what you do as an adult,” says Meredith. “An obese child has an 80 percent chance of becoming an obese adult. So I tapped into my inner kid to look for fun, engaging ways to reach children, and I came up with comics.”

His comic book, featuring The Incredible H-Team, presents a cover of kinetic kids with clenched fists over the admonition, “Unleash Your Inner Hero!” It’s available in paperback or as a Kindle download.

Meredith grew up in Roseland on Chicago’s South Side, where he was a three-sport athlete in high school. After serving in the Navy, he earned a degree in information systems from UIC. He worked for McDonald’s Corp., Lotus and IBM, then gave up his corporate career for a longtime passion: cooking.

After earning a culinary degree in 2007, Meredith launched a meal delivery service called Alter EatGo to help combat obesity in the African American community. He did on-air cooking demos as a media spokesman for the March of Dimes and the American Heart Association, billing himself as “America’s Healthiest Chef.” He’s a registered dietitian, certified personal trainer and youth exercise specialist.

To reach young people, you can’t lecture—“you’ve got to engage them,” Meredith says. “It’s all about reaching kids early, at that age when kids aspire to do something, when they want to be their best self.”

Tina (Stiris) Esposito, a 1997 graduate in health information management, was named one of the “Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT” by Health Data Management.

Esposito is vice president of Advocate Health Care’s Center for Health Information Services.

The national accolade recognizes women who are driving technology innovation, deploying leading-edge technology and implementing healthcare systems that dramatically increase patient safety and improve organizational efficiency.

“We are so proud that Tina has been honored with this prestigious recognition,” said Rishi Sikka, Advocate senior vice president of clinical operations. “Her leadership helped Advocate advance our data strategy and develop technology solutions that enhance the delivery of safe, patient-focused care.”

Esposito joined Advocate in 1999 as a statistical data analyst at Lutheran General Hospital. She was named director of the Center for Health Information Services in 2008 and promoted to vice president in 2012.

She and her team are responsible for system measurement and analytics to support improved patient outcomes and organizational performance. She is the Advocate executive for strategic oversight of the Advocate Cerner Collaborative to create a population health management platform for Advocate. The platform includes a big data strategy, advanced analytical models and deployment into clinical workflow.

Karen Patena, director of the AHS Program in Health Information Management, remembers Esposito well.

“Tina was an outstanding student,” says Patena. “I’m not surprised by her accomplishments, but it’s always so wonderful to hear when alumni do so well!”