Faculty

Gilberto Garcia is a Mexican-American scholar and professor born in El Paso, TX, and raised in Ciudad Juárez, México. He holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in Linguistics and another in Spanish and Border Studies, from the University of Texas at El Paso, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Education from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (México).

Dr. Garcia earned his Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Texas at El Paso and later obtained a Master’s in Education, specializing in Teaching and Learning Processes, from Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey (México) in 2013. He is also a Ph.D. recipient in Hispanic Linguistics, with a minor in Educational Psychology, from Texas Tech University. During his final year of the Ph.D. program, he was honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award from TTU in Lubbock, TX.

Currently, Dr. Garcia directs and teaches in the newly developed, groundbreaking Spanish Language Program for the medical and dental schools at Texas Tech Health El Paso, TX. He has presented at numerous conferences and published articles in his areas of research and teaching, which include heritage language education, heritage speaker identity, heritage speakers in monolingual settings, border studies and transculturation, second language instruction, Spanish dialectology and the intersection of Spanish language and health professions.

Dr. Angelica Padilla is a board certified anatomical and clinical pathologist at Texas Tech Paul Foster School of Medicine. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso. She then obtained her medical degree from UT Houston Mc Govern School of Medicine in Houston, TX and continued her medical training as a pathology resident at UT Houston Mc Govern School of Medicine. Upon completing her residency, Dr. Padilla completed two fellowships in Surgical Pathology and Breast/Gynecological Pathology at Houston Methodist Hospital.

E. Lee Rosenthal, Ph.D. M.S. M.P.H. (Lee) is a public health educator and researcher, based in the U.S. southwest.

• In her research and advocacy, Lee focusses on the growth and development of the Community Health Worker (CHW) workforce. A key part of that has been ongoing work with CHWs since the 1990s to develop the APHA CHW Section. As a part of that and other work in the field, lee has strived to promote CHW leadership and self determination locally, regionally, and nationally.
• Locally, Lee worked for many years while at UTEP with a National Institutes of Health HEART grant with focused on improving cardiovascular health in the lower valley; as a part of this grant, partners, including the Teas A M Colonia’s Project and Centro San Vicente formed an El Paso CHW coalition to support CHW workforce development. More recently, she has been active in the Border CHW Stakeholder Alliance which has been well supported by the UTHealth School of Public Health and Project Vida. In her teaching role at Texas Tech, Dr. Rosenthal has also been fortunate to partner with CHWs from Project Vida to help teach new medical and dental students about the Paso del Norte Region and about the potential of CHWs to support clinical care.
• In the region, Lee was instrumental in supporting the growth of the CHW workforce in both Arizona and New Mexico through work in the early 90s with the newly developing Arizona CHW Outreach Worker Network and through work at the New Mexico Prenatal Care Network as it supported the develop of a NM CHW network with Foundation support.
• Key project leadership nationally includes the National Community Health Advisor Study, the Community Health Worker Evaluation Toolkit, the Community Health Worker National Education Collaborative, the CommunityHealth Worker Workforce Study, and the HEART Project promoting cardiovascular health and the sustainability of Promoters de Salud in El Paso’s lower valley.
• Most recently Lee directed the national Community Health Worker Core Consensus (C3) Project (2014- 2019).The C3 Project, now known as the National Council for Core Consensus Standards, is ramping up to undertake the next consensus-driven national review of CHW roles and competencies and to promote continued adoption of the standards by states and organizations. Lee continues to serve as a member of the C3 core leadership team.
• Lee is as an Associate Professor at Texas Tech Health El Paso in both the Foster School of Medicine and the Hunt School of Dental Medicine in the Society, Community, and the Individual Course team.
• Lee is also the Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Ambulatory Care Management.
• Dr. Rosenthal has Master Degree in Public Health from the University of California at Berkley and a doctorate in Public Policy studies from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Christiane Herber-Valdez earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 1993. She received her Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology in 1998, and a Doctor of Education degree in Educational Leadership and Administration in 2008, both from UTEP.

Dr. Herber-Valdez currently holds a faculty appointment as assistant professor in the Department of Medical Education, and an administrative appointment as Director of Institutional Planning and Effectiveness for the TTU Health Science Center. Prior to joining Texas Tech in March 2014, she held professional positions at institutions of higher education in the areas of student services (UTEP, 1995-2001), and in the management and evaluation of federally funded programs (New Mexico State University, 2002-2014). In the area of program evaluation she was directly involved in the design, development, and implementation of large scale evaluations of federally funded grant programs, including initiatives by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Between 2002 and 2014, she directed the evaluation and program operations of a multi-million dollar NIH P20 faculty and student development grant (New Mexico-IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence, NM-INBRE), which spans six New Mexico institutions of higher education (New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, Eastern New Mexico University, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and San Juan College). Between 2010 and 2014, she also directed the annual evaluation of the University of New Mexico (UNM) Undergraduate Pipeline Network (UPN), a summer research experience program hosted by the UNM Clinical Translational Science Center (CTSC) Biomedical Research Education Program (BREP). Other recent external evaluation projects include the evaluation of the NSF funded Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) STEM-STARS program at New Mexico Highlands University, and the NSF funded Transforming Undergraduate Education in Sciences (TUES) program at UNM. Dr. Herber-Valdez currently serves as evaluation consultant to the NIH funded Maine IDeA Network’s for Biomedical Research Excellence (ME-INBRE), which serves eleven institutions in Maine, including The Jackson Laboratory and Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. Between 2008 and 2012, Dr. Herber-
Valdez also held an appointment as College Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Management at New Mexico State University, where she taught masters and doctoral level graduate courses in higher education on an adjunct basis.

Throughout her career, Dr. Herber-Valdez has presented her work at regional and national meetings and conferences. Organizations include the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), the National Council for Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA), the Texas Association of Colleges and University Student Personnel Administrators (TACUSPA), the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation (NM AMP), the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the American Evaluation Association (AEA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Herber-Valdez’ current interests include social science research methods, program evaluation, evaluation/strategic planning for quality improvement, and innovations in STEM/medical education.

Arturo Ramírez is a Mexican scholar and professor. He was born in Chihuahua, México. Arturo holds a bachelor degree in English from Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua. Simultaneously, he studied law at Universidad Mexicana de Educación a Distancia, so he is at the stage of candidate in that degree as well. In the pursuit of graduate school experience, he moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he completed his M.A. in Spanish (linguistics). This teaching and research exposure allowed him to gain cultural and linguistic knowledge in a border setting.

Dr. Ramírez attained his Ph.D. in Hispanic literature, with a minor in Portuguese, at Texas Tech University. He was twice assigned as an instructor for the Seville Study Abroad Program (Summer 2016 and Fall 2017), which made him aware of the vital role immersion plays when learning a language. In 2019, he was awarded with the Helen Devitt Jones Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award at TTU.

After spending two years in his hometown, where he taught English at both the School of Agricultural Sciences in Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, and the mechatronics division at Universidad Tecnológica de Chihuahua, he is back in the Borderplex. Apart from his main area of research, Afro-Cuban Literature, Dr. Ramírez has been constantly in touch with Portuguese and linguistic disciplines. He has presented in a variety of conferences in the fields of semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and the Lusophone diaspora. 

Judith is a proud El Pasoan who has always called the Borderplex home and is constantly in awe of its beauty, culture, people and the language. Raised in both in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, at a young age, she developed a passion for languages especially bilingualism and the border community. Thus, her educational background is in Spanish and Chicano/Latino Studies. She holds a Masters of Spanish in Literature.  
Before joining the Texas Tech Health El Paso family and the Spanish Program team, she dedicated herself to closing the language gap and barrier international students face as an full-time ESOL Instructor at University of Texas at El Paso. Since 2011, Judith worked with the institutional collaboration between UTEP and Texas Tech Health El Paso to teach Medical Spanish. Since then, she has been an integral component to the continuous growth of the Spanish curriculum for medical students, one that is relevant and authentic to the border community. She enjoys developing creative, authentic, and innovative practices and resources for all of her students to inspire the passion for learning a language and hopes to bring that to the table as the newest member of the Spanish Program team.