L. J. Panas earned both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in sociology from our department. After completing our M.A. program in 2010, he was admitted to the doctoral program in the Population Health Sciences program at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He has completed all of his doctoral coursework, as well as his qualifying exams. His poster presentation, "Mortality Difference for Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites Living in Five Southwestern States" won Best Poster Presentation in Public Health at the National Student Research forum in 2013. He also was the lead author on a paper, "Physical Performance and Short-Term Mortality in Very Old Mexican Americans," which has been accepted for publication in the journal Experimental Aging Research.
