Luziris Pineda Turi was appointed associate vice provost in June 2022. In that role, she supports the vice provost in providing high-level strategic leadership for initiatives across the campus to help create an engaged campus community with a focus on academic excellence for all. She is lovingly known as Dr. L to her students and colleagues.
Dr. L is also an associate teaching professor of Spanish. Her area of expertise is Spanish for medical professions and medical humanities. Particularly, her teaching and research have focused on preparing pre-medical students to communicate effectively with Spanish-speaking patients and understand the particular social, historical, political, and cultural needs, concerns, and potentials of the community. Her past courses for the medical professions track focused on intercultural communication and competence while helping students develop these skills in a simulation patient room she built with funding from Rice University’s Brown Teaching Grant. Dr. L helped students gain experiential opportunities at local clinics and hospitals that serve Spanish-speaking patients through the medical Spanish internship course she developed. Currently, students can pursue advanced studies through Dr. L’s medical humanities courses on U.S. Latine general and/or mental health.
Dr. L has worked at the national level on issues related to Spanish for medical professions and medical humanities, such as her participation in the Pre-Health Group of the National Association of Medical Spanish and its curricular committee. She also presented her research on Medical Humanities and U.S. Latine Health at their national conference and at the Pre-Health Dreamers 2nd Annual Conference. Her participation in the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement’s national panel, “Healthcare Gender Affirming Language Serving Spanish Speakers," allowed her to join the national conversation on queer Latine patient needs. Her work with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) brought her medical humanities expertise to the national stage through the ACGME committee focused on serving graduate medical students from varying backgrounds and experiences. Most notably, she was interviewed by the Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de México, which allowed her to promote Medical Humanities in Spanish to an international audience
Dr. Luziris Pineda Turi has been recognized by Rice University through awards in academic advising and career development and as a favorite professor several times. In 2024, she was awarded the Faculty/Staff award for her support of Rice PRIDE. Her research and teaching have been recognized through the Humanities Research Center.