Biography

Dr. Monica Betancourt-Garcia is the Scientific Director for the Center of Excellence for Trauma Research in the Border Region. She is a native and life-long resident of the Rio Grande Valley, a four-county region along the most southern segment of the Texas-Mexico border. It is one of the poorest regions in the nation, comprised of over 85% Mexican American origin. It brings to the forefront the impact social determinants of health have on the community. As a medical student in Mexico, she was further intrigued by the vast difference in health equity between genetically similar populations. This helped shape her long-term research interests in understanding the developmental pathways that lead to health disparities in the Hispanic population and how population health education may improve the health outcomes of residents in the Rio Grande Valley. She joined DHR Health in 2016 and has led several projects within the health system including spearheading the establishment of South Texas’s most comprehensive biobank-the Border Biorepository at DHR, co-founding the South Texas Academy of Education and Training in Research, and establishing the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Collaborative for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of COVID-19. She has published numerous manuscripts and book chapters and her research focus has been on Hispanic health outcomes in various disciplines including endocrinology, surgery, oncology, and infectious disease.