Dr. Ariane H. Secrest

Degrees Held:

Doctor of Philosophy in Health Behavior, Indiana University ― Bloomington, 2009

Master of Education in Health Education, University of Texas at Austin, 2003

Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy, Texas Woman's University, 2001

Career Highlights:

"Since receiving my occupational therapy degree in 2001, I have practiced in a variety of health care settings; however, the majority has been in home health. I served as a supervising pediatric occupational therapist in the home health setting across central Texas for several years. From 2014 to 2018, I also served as the research biostatistician for the same home health pediatric therapy company, tracking and assessing client outcomes from physical, occupational, and speech therapy intervention. In my role as research biostatistician, I was able to validate the importance of pediatric home health care through determining the effectiveness of occupational, physical, and speech therapy interventions across Texas.

My teaching experiences at UMHB, Texas A&M University (TAMU), and Indiana University-Bloomington (IU) have included a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as completing various research projects with students and other faculty. During my time at UMHB, I have taught a variety of courses including multiple graduate-level research methods courses for public health, exercise physiology, and health professions students, graduate-level biostatistics, graduate-level public health foundation courses, the upper-level undergraduate pathophysiology of chronic disease course, the introductory pre-health professions course, amongst others. While at TAMU, I taught several sections of two content-specific courses, and various independent study courses with both undergraduate and graduate students. During my three and a half years at IU, I was solely responsible for the instruction of four separate, content-specific undergraduate health courses. I have also had the opportunity to serve as the co-chair of doctoral advisory and dissertation committees, and serve on the advisory and thesis committees for master’s students.

Over the past four years, I have served as an Assistant Professor in the Mayborn College of Health Sciences at UMHB. I was appointed as the Founding Director of the Public Health Program in the Fall of 2020 and have been responsible for overseeing the curriculum development and course content for the Bachelor of Science in Public Health (BSPH), Master of Public Health (MPH), the five-year BSPH to MPH fast-track degree plan, an undergraduate Public Health minor, and a graduate Public Health certificate. All curriculum was designed to align with the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing as each degree option also prepares graduates to sit for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES®) examination. Over the past year and a half, I also facilitated a collaborative partnership between the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University and the UMHB Public Health Program. The partnership provides an integrated pathway for medical students to earn their MPH degree without extending their time to completing the MD.

I have a strong commitment to service, not only to the institution, but also to the larger community. Developing and fostering community relationships is very important to me. In my current position, I was the co-founder and faculty co-sponsor of the UMHB Health Sciences Club from 2019-2022, served on the UMHB Institutional Review Board from 2019-2023, and the University Research Committee from 2020-2023, as well as served on multiple other committees so far. Regarding my service to the community, I am a member of Temple Founder Lions Club and Altrusa International - Temple, a board member for the Ronald McDonald House Charities-Temple and the TFLC Parks & Charities Board, and I also currently serve on the first Bell County Public Health Community Health Assessment committee. I recently began an evaluation project with the Temple Community Clinic to evaluate the effectiveness of their services."