A Former Summer Scholar Returns to USU, Now as a Doctoral Student

A former USU Summer Scholar returned as an Army officer and incoming doctoral student as the 2026 military medicine program closed.

Army 2nd Lt. Ava Santiago, a former USU Summer Scholar, delivers the guest address at the 2026 program's closing ceremony on Aug. 14. (Photo credit: David Arthur, Senior Designer/Photographer/Videographer for HJF)

August 20, 2026 by Nile Randolph

Two years after she interned at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) as a college sophomore, Army 2nd Lt. Ava Santiago returned to campus on Friday, Aug. 14, as the guest speaker at the 2026 Summer Scholars closing ceremony — and as an incoming USU doctoral student in clinical psychology. She is the arc the Summer Scholars Program is built to produce: a civilian summer intern who left, became a commissioned officer and a published researcher, and came back to stand in front of the next class.

This year’s program brought 54 college and high school interns to USU, two years after Santiago sat in the same seats. Run by USU’s Office of the Vice President for Research, the program gives students each summer a look at careers in military medicine and research, built around three pillars: exposure, professional development and mentoring, and skill building.

Program Manager Makenson Deroly said the summer is designed to show students the range of a military medicine career, help them build professional connections, and give them hands-on experience. He described the program’s centerpiece career fair as “a cornerstone event that allowed our Summer Scholars to engage directly with the centers’ work.”

Summer Scholars share their research with faculty, mentors, and guests during the USU Summer Scholars poster session. (Photo credit: David Arthur, Senior Designer/Photographer/Videographer for HJF)

That career fair, the USU Career and Research Open House, took place July 21 at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, a longtime USU partner. After a welcome and an overview in the auditorium, the scholars moved through tables staffed by nine USU centers and programs, from the Advanced Research in Military Optimization, Readiness, and Rehabilitation center (ARMORR) and the Murtha Cancer Center Research Program to the 4D Bio3 Center for Biotechnology and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, an external partner, also staffed a table. 

Many centers brought their work into the room. ARMORR laid out devices and materials from its active research. The Murtha Cancer Center Research Program shared images from a PhenoCycler, an automated platform that maps and profiles millions of cells across whole tissue sections. The 4D Bio3 Center for Biotechnology set up a hands-on display of a bioreactor and 3D-printed parts, and the Biomedical Research Imaging Core ran a poster and slideshow of its active projects.

After lunch, the scholars sat down for a fireside conversation with U.S. Army Lt. Col. Milissa U. Jones, whose career spans work as a field surgeon in Kuwait, leadership of national pediatric clinical trials, management of Department of War medical acquisitions, and a role as an attending physician at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Jones walked the students through the directions a career in military medicine can take.

The scholars pressed her with questions about how to reach their own goals. One called the exchange “excellent and extremely informative for those interested in clinical medicine, research, or both.”

USU President Dr. Jonathan Woodson delivers welcome remarks at the 2026 Summer Scholars poster and awards ceremony on Aug. 14. (Photo credit: David Arthur, Senior Designer/Photographer/Videographer for HJF)

A Former Scholar Returns to the Podium

The program closed back at USU on Aug. 14 with a poster and awards ceremony, where the scholars presented the research they had worked on over the summer. USU President Dr. Jonathan Woodson and Dr. Laura Brosch, USU’s interim vice president for research, delivered welcome remarks. The projects Woodson singled out ranged from reducing the systemic effects of prolonged tourniquet use in combat casualty care to testing a potential radioprotective treatment against radiation exposure. He told the scholars they had taken on serious questions with real stakes for patients, service members, and the future of military medicine. They had done more than study science, he said: “You haven’t simply learned about research. You have advanced it.”

Then Santiago took the podium. She interned with the program in the summer of 2024, then graduated from Arizona State University (ASU) in May 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and the department’s Dean’s Medalist honor, its highest award for a graduating senior. She commissioned as an Army second lieutenant and is now beginning a doctorate in clinical psychology at USU. In an ASU feature, she credited USU as the place where she first began to see herself as a scientist (“ASU psychology graduate studies military mental health, earns Dean’s Medalist honor,” April 28, 2026).

Speaking to this year’s scholars, Santiago said the program gave her both a broad introduction to military health and the deeper focus she now carries into her doctoral studies. “I was in their shoes only a year ago and the Summer Scholars program was such an amazing opportunity and experience that I am grateful to have had (twice!),” Santiago said. “I had incredible mentors and was able to get exposure to not only a wide variety of experiences in military health, but also deeper expertise in military psychology, which is what I am studying in my PhD at USUHS!”

Her research at ASU centered on military trauma and mental health, work that fed into co-authored abstracts and a recently published manuscript. The through line from that work to a USU doctoral program is the pipeline the Summer Scholars Program is designed to open. It is a journey the program has traced before.

For the 54 scholars who spent the summer moving through USU’s tables, labs, and lecture halls, Santiago offered a preview of where the work can lead: the students presenting posters this year could be the ones delivering the closing address a few years from now.

Dr. Laura Brosch, USU's interim vice president for research, center, joins Summer Scholars as they receive certificates of achievement at the 2026 program's closing ceremony on Aug. 14. (Photo credit: David Arthur, Senior Designer/Photographer/Videographer for HJF)