Number 3, Summer 2025

Welcome from the Director

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are delighted to share our latest Medical Humanities newsletter with you. For this edition, we are highlighting the impressive work of our students, both those who have completed the MDHM minor, and those who have worked with us in the Medical Humanities Research Institute as Research Fellows. As you will see, they are engaged in a wide variety of projects that bring humanities methods, perspectives, and questions to biomedical research settings, often in Texas Medical Center labs, or with community based organizations. Some of them have even done their work abroad, through our new practicum programs in Spain and Taiwan. As the undergraduate program has grown in popularity and enrollments, we have expanded our research capacity, and we think you will find the results inspiring.

In the same spirit, we are featuring a Rice alumna, Kate Pagel, who graduated before the Medical Humanities minor was founded in 2016, but who has since become an enthusiastic supporter of our program and research institute. We also highlight an exciting outreach effort by our Janice G. Doty lecturer in Medical Humanities, Matty Hemming, with the students in the “Narratives of Reproduction” class.

We hope you enjoy learning about our students, whose work would not be possible without the mentorship and intellectual support of our faculty and staff. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the alumni and friends of the Medical Humanities whose gifts to the program and institute have enabled our work to flourish - your support is indispensable to the growth and outreach of our program, and we sincerely thank you for your partnership. If you are interested in making a gift to Medical Humanities, please contact Emily Stein at 713-348-3424 or emily.m.stein@rice.edu.

Warmly,
Kirsten Ostherr, PhD, MPH
Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English
Director, Medical Humanities program and Medical Humanities Research Institute

Special Thanks

We’re grateful to MHRI Media Strategy Fellow Hamza Saeed for gathering the stories and images, drafting the features, and creating the infographics for this issue. Hamza Saeed is a senior at Brown College majoring in Bioengineering. He is also pursuing a minor in Medical Humanities and intends to pursue a MD-PhD degree. Special thanks to MHRI Media Fellow Mina Cheng for designing and building the email and online versions of the newsletter. Mina is the technical expert at MHRI and will complete her Master’s degree in Computer Science in December 2025.

Medical Humanities Graduates, Class of 2025

Includes December 2024, May 2025, and August 2025

	Alumni Spotlight: Kate Gunn Pagel Rice Alumna Kate Pagel, MPA, Pillar Director in Clinical Project Management at MD Anderson Cancer Center, encourages students to understand patient experience in healthcare settings and in their wider environment. Read More
	Course Spotlight: Narratives of Reproduction Reflections on a visit to the "Designing Motherhood" exhibition at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft for the Narratives of Reproduction course taught by Matty Hemming (Janice G. Doty lecturer in Medical Humanities). Read More

Student Voices

	Celebrating Our Graduating Medical Humanities Students Congratulations to the 2025 graduates of the Medical Humanities Program! Read More
	Annual Medical Humanities Best Essay and Creative Work Competition Presenting the winners of the 2025 Medical Humanities Competition. Hear about the competition from the winning students themselves. Read More
	Medical Humanities Research Showcase Presenting some of the best projects from last semester's Medical Humanities Research Showcase. Let's talk about what they did and why it matters. Read More
	The Journey of a Poster: From the Rice-TMC Ecosystem to the Field How does a student project start in a lecture hall and make it all the way to the Health Innovations in the Rice-TMC Ecosystem event? A case study of two amazing journeys. Read More

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