A teaching kitchen is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A genetics laboratory is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A genetics laboratory is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
The library inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park is photographed in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A garden at the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park is photographed in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
An auditorium is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A student sits in a break area inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A meeting room is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
UTHealth Houston President Melina Kibbe, School of Public Health Dean Eric Boerwinkle, Senior Associate Dean Susan Tortolero Emery and other university leaders and faculty participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s new facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
The exterior of the new 10-story UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park is photographed in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston showed off its new School of Public Health on Wednesday, with leaders touting it as a hub for research focused on improving healthcare access and preventing chronic diseases.
UTHealth Houston held a ribbon-cutting ceremony about three months after students began taking classes in the 10-story tower, located at Old Spanish Trail and Robertson in the Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park campus.
The $299 million building includes a two-story auditorium, a teaching kitchen for nutrition and culinary medicine, and research laboratories focused on genetics and infectious diseases.
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The state-of-the-art building is designed to keep UTHealth Houston at the forefront of research to improve public health in Houston and elsewhere, particularly by reducing the prevalence of chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity, said Eric Boerwinkle, dean of the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.
“We need to improve our health,” Boerwinkle said. “Having increased functionality is going to allow us to educate students for the public health challenges of the future.”
The public health school’s former home in the Texas Medical Center’s primary medical campus will continue to be used by UTHealth Houston’s medical and nursing schools, though exact plans for the older building are still being determined, Boerwinkle said.
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The new, 350,000-square-foot building represents a significant investment in the future of public health research and education in Texas, UTHealth Houston President Dr. Melina Kibbe said during remarks before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
It will bolster the public health school’s ongoing research, including efforts to monitor the presence of viruses in wastewater and a study focused on understanding firefighters’ risk for various cancers, she said.
The building, Kibbe said, represents the UT System’s “confidence in what our people are going to accomplish.”
A media studio is photographed inside the new UTHealth Houston School of Public Health facility at TMC Helix Park in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Designed for modern learning
The new School of Public Health tower was designed for the way learning has evolved over time, Boerwinkle said.
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It still includes traditional classrooms and lecture halls, including the two-story auditorium that seats more than 150. But it also has smaller conference rooms equipped with plenty of screens.
The building also puts more of a focus on hands-on learning that simulates experiences that students will have after they graduate.
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In the teaching kitchen, students can use cooktops and food prep stations to prepare healthful meals. In nearby simulation labs, they can perform assessments on lifelike manikins that mimic symptoms of health conditions such as malnutrition.
One of the building’s unique features is its recording studio, where students and faculty will produce public health videos and podcasts. UTHealth Houston is aiming to develop a major in public health communication to train students to be effective and trusted communicators, Boerwinkle said.
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In the future, the school hopes to host focus groups and conduct additional research into how to communicate effectively during public health crises, such as outbreaks of infectious diseases like COVID-19 and measles, Boerwinkle said.
“There is so much misinformation out there,” he said. “We need to be invested in providing evidence-based information.”
The building is also designed to improve community engagement in studies and events, Boerwinkle said. In the past, it was often difficult for the public to navigate and find parking in the Texas Medical Center. The new public health school is located next to a parking garage.
“It was very hard for people to come into that building, and our programming struggled because of it,” Boerwinkle said. “…Here you can come in, you can park, and you can take part in studies and programs.”
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