Annual Community Engaged Learning Conference
19th Annual CEL Conference
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Community Health
Saturday, January 31, 2026
8:00 am to 2:30 pm
UT Health San Antonio
Register now!
You will be guaranteed a lunch if registered by January 25.
Donations, at any amount, are appreciated to help us to continue our CEL programs and keep this event free and accessible to the community. Donate here.
Keynote Speaker
Michael Mackert, Ph.D.
Director of the University of Texas of Austin
Center for Health Communication
Watch a brief video from Dr. Mackert.
2026 Agenda
| 8:00-8:45 am | Registration / Breakfast with Sponsors | AAB Foyer |
| 8:45-9:00 am | Welcome & Opening Remarks Melanie Stone, DrPH, MEd, CHWI, Assistant Professor of Family & Community Medicine and Director of Community Engaged Learning, UT San Antonio | Holly Auditorium |
| 9:00-10:00 am | Keynote: Delivering Health Messages in the Age of AI: Promise, Pitfalls, and Practice Michael Mackert, PhD, Director, Center for Health Communication, The University of Texas at Austin | Holly Auditorium |
| 10:00-10:10 am | Musical Break with Latin American Duo | |
| 10:10-11:10 am | Panel: AI for All: Transforming Community Health Together Moderator: Beto Altamirano, CEO & Co-Founder, Iry Technologies; Co-founder, Better Futures Institute Panelists: Oralia Bazaldua, PharmD; Michael Goodman, MDiv, MPH, DrPH; Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, PhD; Ryan Van Ramshorst, MD, MPH | Holly Auditorium |
| 11:10am-12:00 pm | Networking with Community Partners | Holly Auditorium Foyer |
| 12:00-12:10 pm | Break / Pick up Lunch | Holly Auditorium Foyer |
| 12:10-12:50 pm | CEL Blue Ribbon Winner Project Presentations | Holly Auditorium |
| 12:50-1:00 pm | Poster Session Opening Remarks Stephanie De Los Santos, BS, BA, Class of 2026 MS Speech Language Pathology Candidate, School of Health Professions, UT San Antonio | Holly Auditorium |
| 1:00-2:30 pm | CEL Poster Session with Dessert Reception | Holly Auditorium Foyer |
Objectives
- To bring together an interprofessional group of UT San Antonio Health Science Center students, faculty, and staff and our colleagues from across the state with community partners to foster service-learning collaborations.
- To share best practices, opportunities, and scholarship in community engaged learning with a focus on exploring the role artificial intelligence (AI) plays in the health of our communities.
- To recognize and reward excellence in community engaged learning projects.
About the Conference
UT San Antonio is committed to engaging our community to improve health. In support of our university’s service mission, our students use what they learn both inside and outside of the classroom to serve medically underserved communities in San Antonio, across Texas and around the globe. The Community Engaged Learning (CEL) Program provides a structure to engage faculty, staff and institutional support of these activities.
CEL is an experiential education method that integrates meaningful community partnership with instruction, mentorship, and reflection to collaboratively address health needs. Health professional students address community-identified needs while learning about the context in which illness develops, connecting their academic coursework to real-life situations, and reflecting on their roles as future healthcare professionals. At the Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics, we believe CEL is ethics in action. We are proud of the leadership that our students exhibit and the promise that they will become community-connected healthcare providers who work to reduce disparities and enhance access to care throughout their careers.
The Annual CEL Conference at UT San Antonio originated in 2008 as an opportunity to learn from the CEL experiences of students, faculty, staff, and community partners in San Antonio and across Texas. Each year, the conference focuses on a theme relevant to service-learning and hosts experts and guest lecturers, provides skill-building sessions, and showcases CEL projects through students’ poster presentations. Presented by Cheever Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics in conjunction with an interprofessional planning committee, the conference is free and open to the community.
