College of Health Sciences MVPs

 

By Micaela Myers

 

Nurse Executive, Researcher and Diversity Champion Gaurdia Banister

When Gaurdia Banister arrived at the University of Wyoming from her hometown of Casper, she wasn’t sure what to major in, so she visited an academic counselor and took several tests. They revealed an aptitude for math and science. From the list of related careers, Banister chose nursing. 

“Being in the nursing school at UW was a phenomenal experience,” Banister says. “I had amazing faculty, and they poured their love of nursing into me. I felt very fortunate to have that kind of experience. I also had wonderful classmates, I was a cheerleader, and I ran on the track team for a year.”

Toward the end of her UW nursing degree, Banister completed a psychiatric nurse rotation in Evanston.

“I found my passion,” she says. “I knew that I wanted to be a psychiatric mental health nurse. It launched my whole career and passion for caring for those who are marginalized and misunderstood.” 

After working in the field, Banister went on to earn her master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Texas. Her career led her to hold a number of leadership positions, including serving as senior vice president for patient care services and chief nurse at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., and then as executive director of the Institute for Patient Care at Massachusetts General Hospital, with academic appointments at the affiliated MGH Institute of Health Professions and the Manning College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Along the way, Banister earned distinguished alumna awards from both of her alma maters as well as the American Nurses Association Mary Mahoney Award and the American Organization for Nursing Leadership Prism Award for her outstanding achievements and leadership in promoting the integration, retention and advancement of minorities in nursing. 

 

Since her recent retirement from Massachusetts General Hospital, Banister is focusing on two research projects. 

“I’m part of a $20 million grant to advance diversity in nursing called the Clinical Leadership Collaborative for Diversity in Nursing,” she says. The grant includes support for 400 students over the next five years. 

For the second grant, Banister is researching the use of patient portals — where patients can contact their providers online — to gain insight into how this technology can become more effective.

“In addition to these projects, I love to travel and so does my husband, so we will continue to travel around the world, meet new people, eat interesting foods and learn a lot of history,” she says. “I also want to give back, so I do a lot of mentoring and I do a lot of leadership development.”

Banister also serves on Boston’s Museum of Science board, where she supports their mission of making science accessible to everyone across the world, and she’s a member of the New England Regional Black Nurses Association board.

“I’m very grateful to UW because it gave me my start in this career, and it gave me a really sound foundation to build upon,” Banister says. “It made me what I am today.”

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University of Tennessee Associate Dean and Gazelle Impact Kenya Founder Mary Gitau

Mary Gitau grew up in Kinangop, Kenya. She came to the University of Wyoming for a master’s degree in communication (2007) but went on to earn her master’s degree in social work (2012) and a Ph.D. in adult learning and postsecondary education (2011). 

“I was part of three different colleges over that 10-year period,” Gitau says. “Now I use all of them at the same time. I’ve been able to pull a lot of strength from all those areas. I can look at something from very different angles.”

For nearly a decade, Gitau served on the social work faculty at Clarke University in Iowa. In 2023, she accepted a new position at the University of Tennessee, where she now serves as associate dean of access, belonging and global engagement and associate professor of practice. 

“It has been a very good move,” she says. “I do a lot of programming, and I work with students, faculty, staff and the larger community. I love initiating new programs and strategizing on ways to engage different populations.”

Gitau also serves as president of the nonprofit she founded: Gazelle Impact on Women and Youth - Kenya.

“Social work led to a passion for helping poor communities and rural people, whether here in the U.S. or globally,” she says. “Our dual mission includes empowering rural communities in Kenya while providing an opportunity for American students to travel to Kenya and experience cultural immersion.”

Gazelle Impact Kenya’s projects include providing a community computer lab and training, tutoring for youth, employment skill-building, health and wellness education and clean water. For example, in one community, the nonprofit fundraised for drilling a 270-meter-deep solar-powered borehole.  

In 2018, Gitau was awarded the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship hosted at Kisii University in Kenya. While there, she initiated the establishment of the Center for Peace, Social Justice, Equality and Security. In 2022, she earned a UW College of Health Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award.

Combining her academic career with a passion for global engagement, Gitau recently developed a collaborative online international learning course with American and Kenyan students participating together.

She says that finding social work changed her life — it all happened by accident when her graduate assistantship in the UW College of Education fell through and she secured one in the Division of Social Work. Once she discovered the profession and all it had to offer, a global social work course ignited Gitau’s passion for global engagement and social justice. 

“It opened another way of looking into the world, and I’ve never looked back,” she says. “I love working with people and empowering those who are struggling in different ways.”

At UW, she also gained a great deal of teaching experience, a solid background in postsecondary educational instruction and excellent communication skills.

Gitau says, “I’m so proud of the University of Wyoming and to say I got my degrees there.”

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Pathologist and Educator Brian Menkhaus

Working in a plant pathology lab as an undergraduate is what ultimately led Brian Menkhaus to study medicine. Along the way, though, he earned several University of Wyoming degrees, including mathematics/natural science, agroecology and pharmacy. 

“I was interested in a lot of stuff, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do at first,” Menkhaus says. 

After working as a pharmacist, he decided to apply to the WWAMI program. Five states participate in the program — Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho — giving the program its acronym. Students in the program begin their educations within their state and then earn their medical degrees from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. Each year, 20 seats are reserved for Wyoming students, who then spend 18 months on the UW campus before assignments at clinical sites throughout the region. Graduates who practice in the state for a minimum number of years have the cost of their education covered. For Menkhaus, who was raised in Laramie, that requirement was an incentive.  

“I grew up in Wyoming, and I was going to come back to Wyoming anyway, so for me it’s more like a luxury,” he says. “I liked all the different corners of the state.”

Menkhaus’s favorite part of the WWAMI program, unsurprisingly, was his time in Wyoming. Upon graduation in 2012, he chose to specialize in pathology. 

“UW plant sciences Professor Fred Gray was a mentor for me and somebody who helped me out a lot when I worked in his plant pathology lab. In his lab, we did a lot of different things with treating plant diseases in Wyoming,” says Menkhaus, who now practices pathology at Sheridan Memorial Hospital. “I’ve always enjoyed studying the human condition and how diseases manifest and are treated, so it was a natural fit.”

Becoming a doctor also led Menkhaus to another passion: teaching. He teaches pathology and histology to current UW WWAMI students as well as teaching anatomy and physiology at Sheridan College. 

“In Sheridan, I get to work with pre-dental hygiene, pre-nursing, pre-med and pre-physical therapy students,” Menkhaus says. “There’s a pretty good diversity, and that’s a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed being able to take what I’ve learned over the years and teach undergrads and the medical students as well. They ask a lot of really challenging questions, so I get to go back and study it, and that’s been the best thing about it for me.”

His students recognize and appreciate his passion for teaching, which earned Menkhaus WWAMI’s 2024 Outstanding Medical Educator Award. 

“The Wyoming WWAMI third-year medical students selected me, and that was really special,” he says. “It means a lot to have something like that come from the students.” 

Menkhaus was also honored as a College of Health Sciences 2024 Distinguished Alumnus, which he humbly finds mystifying. But given his dedication to teaching the next generation of medical professionals, the honors are no surprise.