Mobile Logo in White
Search/Quicklinks

Our Team

photo of ferrer

Robert Ferrer, MD, MPH

Community Engagement Director 

Dr. Ferrer is the Director for Community Engagement at the IIMS and the Dr. John M. Smith, Jr. Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UTHSA. Dr. Ferrer’s research interests include understanding and improving the public health impact of primary care; addressing social determinants of health; and creating new models of primary care practice. He is active in community health initiatives including the Texas Community-Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Consortium where he serves as the PI for the Bexar County CEAL project.  Additionally, he is the former chair of the leadership team for San Antonio’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Ferrer is a board member of the Bexar County Health Collaborative, serving as board chair for 2016 and 2017. In 2018 Dr. Ferrer was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine for his innovative application of the capability framework that provides a practical and positive method for addressing the social and environmental determinants of health in participatory interventions that integrate primary care and community health.

photo of delarosa

Elisabeth de la Rosa, MS, CHW

Community Engagement Research Operations Manager

Elisabeth serves as the point of contact for the IIMS Community Engagement Team. She works with the the leaders to develop and implement programs that facilitate the continuation and formation of community and academic research partnerships. For 20 years, she has coordinated different projects and research studies within the UT System. She has been a part of the IIMS Community Engagement Team since 2009 and has worked alongside various partners to help develop, implement, and evaluate various projects that address community health concerns including diabetes, environmental health, teen pregnancy, and suicide.

photo of Cruz

Inez Cruz, PhD, LMSW

Community Engagement Co-Investigator

Dr. Cruz is the Director of the IIMS Practice Based Research Network (PBRN) Resource Center and serves as the Director of the Residency Research Network of Texas (RRNet) since 2018 and a member since 2014. Since then, RRNeT’s Family Medicine faculty and residents have collaboratively developed new multi-site research projects that respond to PBRN member priorities such as social determinants of health and quality of life, comfort with uncertainty among trainees, physician burnout, and demonstrating accountability to payers and regulators. Dr. Cruz is Research Faculty in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UTHSA, primarily working in Qualitative Health Services Research. Under Dr. Cruz’s leadership, RRNet has created a trajectory of successful grant applications, presentations, and published manuscripts. Dr. Cruz also provides professional development contracting support for the Department of Pathology at UT Health San Antonio. Dr. Cruz has also previously served as the administrative lead for the 59th Medical Wing at JBSA-Lackland’s Diabetes Center of Excellence as their Research Director.

photo of Jan-Lesser

Janna Lesser, PhD, RN, FAAN

Community Engagement Co-Investigator 

Dr. Lesser is a tenured Professor in UT Health San Antonio’s School of Nursing, the Director of the South Texas AHEC Program and Director of the Center for Community-Based Health Promotion with Women and Children. She has conducted community-engaged projects with individuals and communities living with a myriad of health and social inequities for over twenty years, for which she has received both internal and external funding. Dr. Lesser works with a diverse group of target populations including inner-city dwelling adolescent mothers and fathers, disenfranchised youth (including youth in the juvenile justice system), families living in predominantly Hispanic, impoverished communities, and individuals and groups living with chronic and severe mental illness.

photo of Manuel

Manuel Ángel Oscós Sánchez, MD

Community Engagement Co-Investigator

Dr. Oscós Sánchez is a native of San Antonio and a Professor in the School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. Additionally, he is the Director of Programs for the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine. His research expertise is focused on Adolescent Health, Community Based Participatory Action Research, Positive Youth Development, Latino Youth Violence, and Cultural Anthropology. Dr. Oscós Sánchez created and directed the local Teen Medical Academy which was conducted for 13 years with the goal of promoting health careers among economically disadvantaged urban youth. He has collaborated with Familias en Acción for over 13 years on family and adolescent violence community based-participatory research studies in the Harlandale Independent School District (HISD) area.

photo of Kathleen Stevens

Kathleen Stevens, EdD, RN, ANEF, FAAN

Community Engagement Co-Investigator

Dr. Stevens is the Director of the Improvement Science Research Network (ISRN) which aims to advance the scientific foundation for quality improvement, safety and efficiency through transdisciplinary research in healthcare systems, patient-centeredness, and integration of evidence into practice. Dr. Stevens was the founding director of ACE-Center for Advancing Clinical Excellence 2000-2015, leading interprofessional efforts to advance evidence-based quality improvement and patient safety. Her federally funded activities emphasize healthcare transformation through scholarly work on the national Improvement Science Research Network, AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange, Institute of Medicine’s report Preventing Medication Errors, and team performance improvement. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Academy of Nurse Educators and is the UT System Chancellor’s Health Fellow for healthcare delivery science.

photo of valerio

Melissa Valerio-Shewmaker, PhD, MPH

Community Engagement Co-Investigator

Dr. Valerio-Shewmaker is an Associate Professor at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Brownsville. Dr. Valerio-Shewmaker and her team provide research and technical assistance to the Translational Advisory Boards (TABs) and other community-based organizations to help them respond to prioritized health concerns. Dr. Valerio-Shewmaker’s research interests include using community-based research approaches for chronic disease management and prevention, the design and evaluation of effective health education messages and materials, and survey methods. She is particularly interested in health literacy and cultural competence issues related to health education and communication in minority underserved communities.

photo of winkler

Paula Winkler, MEd

Community Engagement Co-Investigator

Ms. Winkler is the Director of the South Central Area Health Education Center, which serves a twelve county catchment area to foster practice improvement initiatives and to increase opportunity for translational research to community members. Ms. Winkler serves as the Director of the Translational Advisory Boards (TABs). In this role she works to establish partnerships between UTHSA researchers and the community, so that they may develop projects to address community-identified health concerns. Ms. Winkler has over 35 years of experience developing linkages between academic programs to community based health promotion/disease prevention initiatives.

Our Academic Partners

Community Health Advisory Board (CHAB)

Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) Center

Translational Advisory Boards (TABs)