A new generation of health care professionals, researchers and educators are graduating from Oregon Health & Science University this month. A total of 1,142 degrees and certificates will be awarded.
Graduates will assemble on Friday, June 9, at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Portland. The keynote speaker will be Roselyn Tso, director of the Indian Health Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The all-school convocation will start at 1 p.m., June 9, followed by separate ceremonies for the OHSU schools of medicine, dentistry and nursing, as well as the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, which will begin at approximately 3 p.m. The OSU/OHSU Doctor of Pharmacy Program will also have a reception at 3 p.m. that day, in addition to a separate graduation ceremony that it will hold in Corvallis on June 16.
For Media:
Media outlets that would like to cover the event are asked to RSVP at news@ohsu.edu.
The ceremony starts 1 p.m. on Friday, June 9, at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Portland.
Graduates can only be available for interviews at noon, before the ceremony.
Graduates are encouraged to use #OHSUgrad2023, #OHSUgrad and #OHSU when posting on social media.
“The future of health and science is looking bright as the Class of 2023 moves on, motivated and ready to make a difference,” said OHSU President Danny Jacobs, M.D., M.P.H., FACS. “With an admirable combination of values, knowledge, dedication and drive, the potential these students possess is inspiring and leaves me a with a sense of great optimism for what’s to come. I look forward to seeing the many ways these graduates contribute to improving human health and well-being on a global scale.”
“Graduation is a time that marks new beginnings, hope, and promise,“ said OHSU Provost Marie Chisholm-Burns, Pharm.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., FCCP, FASHP, FAST, FACHE. “The Class of 2023 has a wonderful future ahead, and they will use their knowledge and training to improve health for all. I’m excited for each of them and look forward to their future success. I thank everyone who has been a part of their journey to this point including family, friends, faculty, staff, and others.”
The OHSU School of Dentistry will award 85 degrees this year.
“I continue to be inspired by the accomplishments of our students,” says Ronald Sakaguchi, D.D.S., Ph.D., M.S., M.B.A., dean of the OHSU School of Dentistry. “I admire their dedication and vision for a future that is more fair and welcoming. Our graduates will thrive as leaders in oral healthcare, working for a more inclusive health care system that provides high quality and accessible care to all. Congratulations to all our graduates. The School of Dentistry is honored to have played a part in their career choice and future successes.”
The OHSU School of Medicine will award 444 degrees and certificates.
“Graduation, especially in medicine and biomedical science, is really about hope,” said David Jacoby, M.D., dean of the OHSU School of Medicine. “It’s when the idealism, diligence and passion that fuel so many of our students are unleashed to help address our most pressing health challenges and to refresh our optimism and belief in what is possible for our patients and for humankind.”
The OHSU School of Nursing will award 423 degrees.
“Our school of nursing graduates are essential to the future of nursing, health and healthcare — those entering their first positions as nurses and those advancing their careers,” said Susan Bakewell-Sachs, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, dean of the OHSU School of Nursing. “They have succeeded in rigorous academic programs and are greatly needed as leaders to improve care delivery and outcomes, achieve health equity, educate future nurses, discover and translate science, and insure a better future for us all.”
The OSU/OHSU Doctor of Pharmacy Program will award 74 degrees.
“It is with great pride that I, along with our entire faculty and staff, congratulate the graduating class of 2023 for their remarkable achievements,” said David Bearden, Pharm.D., FIDP, FCCP, dean of the OSU College of Pharmacy. “As students, they have motivated and inspired all of us, and it has been our collective pleasure to work with them. From quickly adapting to remote and hybrid learning, to working on the frontlines of the pandemic response, they are entering the profession at an exciting time as the scope of practice for pharmacists continues to expand. Their hard work and commitment to patient care has prepared them to advance the profession of pharmacy and become creative leaders for collaborative healthcare in Oregon and across the country.”
The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health will award 116 degrees and certificates.
“As we transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we as a society are redefining what ‘normal’ means in our lives,” said Rick Johnson, Ph.D., interim dean of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. “This year’s graduating class is well-poised to play an important role in that process. This will include defining how we learn from the pandemic to improve Public Health going forward, as well as addressing social justice imbalances that have increased during COVID. I am confident that our graduates are prepared to lead and strengthen communities now and into the future.”
Meet some of OHSU’s 2023 graduates
OHSU School of Dentistry — Zack Flint, D.M.D.
Routine dental exams were not the norm for Zack Flint, D.M.D., who grew up in Salem as part of a large family that struggled to make ends meet.
But when a high school class led to an opportunity to shadow someone in their workplace, he knew who he wanted to observe: the dentist who had recently cleaned his teeth for the first time. The flicker of a potential future was ignited within Flint when he saw how well the dentist engaged with patients and was able to literally work with his hands all day long.
With his parents’ encouragement, Flint became the first member of his family to attend college and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Brigham Young University-Idaho. As an undergraduate student, Flint considered a variety of health professions. But then another dentist — the father of his now-wife — led him to ultimately choose dentistry. While observing him work in clinic, Flint saw his future father-in-law transform lives and alleviate pain through quality dental care.
As a dental student, Flint has had the pleasure of helping many Oregonians while working in clinics under the supervision of licensed dentists. One such patient interaction sticks out: A tearful woman came into the clinic with a broken front tooth. She was worried, because she would soon meet her now-adult child years after she made the difficult decision to give them up for adoption as a baby.
“She didn’t want to have a broken tooth when they first met, and I was able to build up the tooth as naturally as possible,” Flint recalled. “After I finished, she felt so much relief that she cried.”
After graduation, Flint, his wife and their 1-year-old daughter will move to Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, to be closer to his wife’s family and to join a community dental clinic there. Like the dentists who have inspired him, Flint hopes to become rooted in a community by providing quality care to generations of families.
OHSU School of Medicine — Jacob Smith, M.D.
Before medical school, Jacob Smith, M.D., volunteered with OHSU’s Casey Community Outreach Program, a mobile clinic that provides free vision screenings and services around Oregon.
“Their outreach van is the coolest thing,” he said. “It’s health care delivered in a way I’d never seen before. It’s meeting people where they’re at.”
Once in medical school, the aspiring dermatologist pitched a similar idea to Sancy Leachman, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of dermatology in the OHSU School of Medicine. The mobile outreach clinic would offer free screenings and education for melanoma — the most dangerous type of skin cancer — as part of the department’s War on Melanoma to decrease skin cancer rates in Oregon. Her reply: “Let’s go ahead and get started now!”
But just as Smith began contacting people, the pandemic arrived in Oregon and upended everything. The idea was scaled back, but he managed to organize several melanoma screenings and enlist other medical students to continue the effort. The experience crystallized his desire to get out in the community and make a difference in people’s lives.
Originally from Hillsboro, Smith struggled with atopic dermatitis — a condition that causes itchy, inflamed skin — as a child. He received treatment that improved both his physical and mental health, and also ignited his interest in dermatology. He graduated from Linfield University with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in 2017.
The 27-year-old is a descendant of the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla (Walla Walla) and part of the first group of students from the Wy’east Post-Baccalaureate Pathway to graduate from medical school. An initiative of the Northwest Native American Center of Excellence, the rigorous, 10-month program helps talented Native students overcome obstacles that can otherwise prevent them from studying medicine.
The program connected Smith with his Native roots, and once in medical school, he mentored other Wy’east scholars. He also helped organize focus groups with Native youth — in partnership with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board — to better understand the efficacy of skin cancer education campaigns.
After graduation, Smith will stay in Portland to continue his medical training. He’ll soon start a yearlong transitional medical residency program at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Afterward, he’ll join the OHSU Dermatology Residency Program. He will be the OHSU dermatology department’s first Native American resident and one of only a handful of Native Americans that have matched in dermatology anywhere in the country. He hopes to practice in Oregon and care for people in rural or underserved communities, which have the highest rates of late-stage, undiagnosed melanoma.
“I’m ready to get out there and stop melanoma through screenings, teaching, community outreach and the practice of medicine,” Smith said. “We’ll see where I end up, but wherever I practice, I hope to serve the Oregon Native population and the people that I’ve come from.”
OHSU School of Nursing — Enyo Dzata-Smith, D.N.P., M.S.N., CPNP
Enyo Dzata-Smith, D.N.P., M.S.N., CPNP, often accompanied her mother — a Corvallis-based midwife who traveled throughout Oregon — to births when she was a child. She saw her mother build relationships, collaborate and support patients during one of the most vulnerable moments in their lives.
These experiences inspired her to pursue a career that places relationships at the foundation of a holistic approach to health. As part of that pursuit, she left Oregon to earn a bachelor’s degree in human development and psychological services from Northwestern University in 2002 and a master’s degree in pediatric nursing practice from Yale University in 2007.
After nearly 20 years, Dzata-Smith returned to Oregon in 2016 so she could be closer to family and also work as a nurse practitioner at a Lane County-operated pediatric primary care center in Eugene. Soon after, she enrolled in the OHSU School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program.
In the clinic, Dzata-Smith started seeing more kids with depression and anxiety. She observed more children experiencing mental health concerns, and also saw that children who already had a mental health diagnosis were experiencing worsening conditions.
“Something needed to change, and I was propelled to see what was happening to these kids on a system level,” she said. “This wasn’t my experience and I wanted to advocate for them. After I started researching, I noticed kids of color were not graduating at the same rate as their white counterparts. I wanted to figure out how to collaborate with schools to create a better system.”
To help those historically and systematically excluded in health care as well as education, Dzata-Smith’s OHSU doctoral project focused on helping an elementary school better support students through a trauma-informed, equity-centered lens. She implemented a trauma screening tool to proactively ask students about their experiences, particularly with trauma. Teachers can use information learned during these screenings to refer families for programs that help with finding or paying for housing, and covering bills, just as Dzata-Smith has used information from screenings to help her pediatric patients.
Dzata-Smith is currently a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, Minority Doctoral Fellow and will present her D.N.P. project at the SAMHSA Minority Fellowship Program’s 50th celebration a few days before convocation.
OSU/OHSU Doctor of Pharmacy Program, OSU College of Pharmacy — Evita Santos, Pharm.D.
Evita Santos, Pharm.D., is a passionate and dedicated future pharmacist who has long been driven by a desire to understand the transformative power of medicine. Inspired by a close family member’s illness and the profound impact that health care professionals can have, Santos knew that she wanted to pursue a career in pharmacy from a young age.
Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Santos moved to Portland when she was young. After earning a bachelor’s degree in bio-health sciences with a minor in chemistry from Oregon State University in 2019, she enrolled in the OSU/OHSU Doctor of Pharmacy Program within the OSU College of Pharmacy. While studying pharmacy, she served as president of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ OSU student chapter.
As an intern pharmacist at Legacy Emanuel Hospital during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Santos experienced firsthand the challenges and intensity of working in a full-capacity hospital during that moment in history. Witnessing both the tragic loss of lives and health care workers’ tireless dedication to their jobs inspired Santos to focus her career on inpatient pharmacy, with a specific interest in emergency medicine.
Santos was also part of the leadership team that organized OHSU’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. She helped organize more than 70 hours of immunization clinics that enabled more than 2,400 OHSU employees to get vaccinated. She personally administered vaccines and recruited other students to do the same. Her efforts were recognized with a FLAME Award from the OHSU All-Hill Student Council.
Following graduation, Santos will begin her first-year acute care pharmacy residency at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. Her long-term goals include pursuing a second-year residency in emergency medicine or critical care. She wants to ensure that pharmacy always has a seat at the table, advocating for the evolving role of pharmacists in health care.
OHSU-PSU School of Public Health — Sylvia Rivera, M.P.H., RN
Sylvia Rivera, M.P.H., RN,’s journey toward public health has involved a constellation of paths and detours that have primarily been informed by her experiences as a Puerto Rico-born woman.
From Santurce, Puerto Rico, where most of her family still resides, Rivera is intimately aware of how systems and power structures can limit choices for minoritized peoples — including displacing her family from their home.
“Colonialism and coloniality have resulted in one public health crisis after another in Puerto Rico: widespread poverty, poor health infrastructure, unemployment and the imposition of austerity measures such as school closures, and the reduction and elimination of pensions,” said Rivera.
Being a registered nurse has also shaped her journey. Previously, she worked at a level 1 trauma center and a sexually transmitted disease clinic, and was also a supervisor at a social services agency and a federally qualified health center.
Rivera has also been inspired by several women of color: Her grandmothers, Aura Iris Rivera Martínez and Maria Oquendo Encarnación; her mother, Sylvia Luz Olmo Rivera, who always fought for her and provided unconditional love; and her sisters and friends, Kim Cameron-Dominguez, Ph.D., Andrea Treadway and Yessenia Villalobos. She said these women taught her to unapologetically take up space — “despite the many ways white supremacy ‘lands’ on our minds and bodies every day.”
In addition, Rivera credits OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Associate Professor Ryan J. Petteway, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., for profoundly shaping her training. “Those who know Dr. Petteway know that he is unapologetically committed to listening to and supporting students from the margins in public health and beyond. I will always be grateful for his mentorship,” she said.
Moving forward, her unique combination of perspectives will inform her public health work, which she plans to do in partnership with systematically marginalized people. Rivera specifically aims to center the voices of Black/Afro Puerto Rican women and other women of color in her work.
“My goal is to support other women of color become the narrators of their lives, to unapologetically ‘snap back’ at the systems of oppression that seek to erase us in order to realize a world that fundamentally values us,” Rivera said. “If one woman is inspired to speak, that’s all the impact I need.”
Rivera has earned a master’s degree in public health, with a focus on health promotion. She has been named a 2023-24 American Public Health Association Kaiser Permanente Community Health Fellow. Through the yearlong fellowship, Rivera will support and lead efforts at Kaiser Permanente Northwest’s Community Health and External Affairs Department.
Franny White, Rachel Schafer, Christi Richardson-Zboralski, Jin Ballew and Kelly Mackura contributed to this announcement.
OHSU 2023 Degree Data
Total degrees and certificates given during 2022-23 school year: 1,142
OHSU School of Dentistry – 85 total degrees
Doctor of Dental Medicine (D.M.D.) – 71
Master of Science in Orthodontics – 4
Advanced Education – 10
- Endodontics – 3
- Orthodontics – 4
- Periodontics – 3
OHSU School of Medicine – 444 total degrees and certificates
Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) – 166
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) – 31
- Behavioral Neuroscience – 2
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology – 1
- Biomedical Engineering – 10
- Cancer Biology – 3
- Cell & Developmental Biology – 3
- Computer Science & Engineering – 1
- Microbiology – 1
- Molecular & Medical Genetics – 1
- Neuroscience – 8
- Physiology & Pharmacology – 1
Master’s degrees – 143
- Master of Business Administration – 57
- Master of Clinical Research – 15
- Master of Physician Assistant Studies – 30
- Master of Science in Bioinformatics & Computational Biomedicine – 3
- Master of Science in Food Systems & Society – 1
- Master of Science in Health & Clinical Informatics – 6
- Master of Science in Healthcare Administration – 15
- Master of Science in Healthcare Management – 2
- Master of Science in Human Nutrition – 8
- Master of Science in Medical Physics – 5
- Master of Science in Neuroscience – 1
Graduate certificates – 39
- Dietetic Internship – 16
- Health & Clinical Informatics – 12
- Human Investigations Program – 11
Bachelor’s degrees – 46
- Bachelor of Science in Emergency Medical Services Management – 4
- Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science – 33
- Bachelor of Science in Radiation Therapy – 9
Associate of Applied Science in Paramedic – 19
OHSU School of Nursing – 423 total degrees
Doctor of Nursing Practice (D.N.P.) – 78
- Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner – 10
- Family Nurse Practitioner – 16
- Nurse Anesthesia – 14
- Nurse Midwifery – 10
- Nursing – 4
- Pediatric Primary & Acute Care Nurse Practitioner – 8
- Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner – 16
Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (Ph.D.) – 4
Master’s degrees – 18
- Master of Nursing in Health Systems & Organizational Leadership – 5
- Master of Nursing in Nursing Education – 13
Bachelor of Science in Nursing – 323
OSU/OHSU Doctor of Pharmacy Program, OSU College of Pharmacy – 74 total degrees
- Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) – 74
OHSU-PSU School of Public Health – 116 total degrees and certificates
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) – 4
- Community Health – 2
- Epidemiology – 1
- Health Systems & Policy – 1
Master’s degrees (M.P.H., M.S.) – 111
- Master of Public Health in Biostatistics – 1
- Master of Public Health in Environmental Systems & Human Health – 10
- Master of Public Health in Epidemiology – 35
- Master of Public Health in Health Management & Policy – 24
- Master of Public Health in Health Promotion – 24
- Master of Public Health in Primary Health Care & Health Disparities – 1
- Master of Public Health Practice – 13
- Master of Science in Biostatistics – 3
Graduate certificate in Biostatistics – 1