The School of Medicine’s Katherine Raja and Rose Pagano receive the highest honor the University System of Maryland board bestows to recognize exemplary student achievement.
Photo (courtesy of USM): From left, Board of Regents chair Linda Gooden, Rose Pagano, UMB President Bruce Jarrell, and USM Chancellor Jay Perman.
Two University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) students were among 12 students from across the University System of Maryland (USM) who received 2024 USM Board of Regents Student Excellence Scholarships.
The UMB students recognized are from the School of Medicine: Katherine Raja, MD, who graduated in May, and Rose Pagano, Class of 2026.
The award, which was inaugurated in 2023, is the highest honor the board bestows to recognize exemplary student achievement. Scholarships are presented in four categories: Academics, Scholarship, and Research; Innovation and Creative Activity; Leadership and Advocacy; and Outreach and Engagement.
Raja was recognized in the Outreach and Engagement category. Pagano was honored in the Leadership and Advocacy category. Each award carries a $2,000 scholarship provided by USM and the USM Foundation.
“I was very excited to learn that I was selected as one of the USM scholarship recipients,” said Raja, who is starting a pediatrics residency at the University of California San Diego this month. “I am also extremely grateful to the amazing mentors I have had, without whom my work setting up a social determinants of health clinic with UMB Health Alliance would not have been possible.
“Being selected for this scholarship is an honor that I feel really highlights the meaningful impact community outreach efforts can have in our local West Baltimore community. I look forward to continuing my outreach work in residency and beyond.”
“I am honored and humbled to receive the USM Board of Regents Scholarship,” Pagano said. “It means so much to be supported by the Maryland community in this way, and I hope to continue to contribute to this amazing community.”
In a USM news release, Chancellor Jay A. Perman, MD, said, “I often find myself in awe of our students. The curiosity they bring to their work, the brilliance and creativity that animate it, the dedication they show to making a real and meaningful difference in the world — all of it inspires me. And I know it inspires their professors, too. It’s a pleasure to pay tribute to them.”
Here is what the USM news release said about the UMB scholarship recipients:
Katherine Raja
Katherine works to improve neighbors’ health literacy and access to essential services.
She served as co-president of the UMB Health Alliance and established a clinic at UMB’s Community Engagement Center focused on the social determinants of health. To create a network of referrals to the clinic, she partnered not only with medical departments, but also with Maryland Carey Law’s Immigration Clinic.
She and her clinic colleagues perform comprehensive social needs assessments for residents and provide individualized care coordination services. In the clinic’s first year, more than 30 neighbors were served, and Katherine dedicated well over 300 hours to this work.
Katherine was part of the Johns Hopkins COVID K-12 Initiative, teaching children how the virus spreads and how to protect themselves and their communities. And she’s a trusted resource for Baltimore’s Spanish-speaking citizens.
Her nominator calls Katherine a “compassionate clinician” who honors patients’ dignity while addressing their complex needs.
Rose Pagano
Rose is a medical student who balances a demanding education with her advocacy for health care accessibility and social justice.
As co-president of the Medical Student Section of MedChi, Maryland’s medical society, Rose proposed and lobbied for MedChi to adopt policies that have improved medical education in Maryland. One such policy mandated that naloxone training for opioid overdose be integrated into Maryland’s medical education curricula. The policy passed, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine has begun providing naloxone training to first- and second-year medical students.
Rose also organized an Advocacy Day in Annapolis, where she facilitated meetings between medical students and state legislators to lobby for bills that would expand access to behavioral health care and protect patient information.
Her nominator writes, “Ms. Pagano lives every day to help the community around her. She’s the definition of a servant leader and an unwavering advocate.”