Engineering Medicine (EnMed) recently held its first Discovery Gala in the new facility overlooking the Texas Medical Center. The formal event is a new tradition for EnMed, coordinated by medical students to celebrate the end of their first year of medical school and to honor second-year students for completing pre-clerkship.

This year’s gala was organized by committee members Medha Narwankar, Sandra Zhi, Mitchell Hsu, Johnny McMurray, Kevin Birdsall, Brianna Peacock, Lili Anemikos, Tanner Walker and Srujan Kancharla.

The event was filled with dancing, hors d’oeuvres, games and activities. The students also awarded EnMed faculty and staff with superlatives that recognized the unique qualities that each instructor brings to the program.

Some of the awards included:

Dr. Roderic Pettigrew — Best leadership with the most interesting stories

Dr. Doug Baxter — Most passionate

Dr. John Criscione — Most likely to hire EnMed students at his own start-up company

Dr. Leslie Day — Most caring and determined professor

Dr. Nivedita Ganguly — Most eager

Dr. Michael Moreno — Most likely to write your patent

Dr. Ian Murray — Most receptive to students’ concerns and feedback

Dr. Andrew Robbins — Most likely to engineer the next big thing in medicine

Dr. Nicholas Sears — Most student-centered professor

Dr. Michael Paolini — Most valuable professor

Dr. Tom Peterson — Most understanding

Dr. Kamlesh Yadav — Most tech-savvy team-based learning master