Next University Tea to feature world-renowned surgeon and Yale trustee Francisco Cigarroa

Surgeon, educator, and Yale Corporation alumni fellow Dr. Francisco Cigarroa ’79 will return to campus for a University Tea on Thursday, April 7 at 5:30 p.m. in Rm. 410 of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, 1 Prospect St.

Cigarroa is a pediatric transplant surgeon, director of pediatric transplantation at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and is the incumbent of the Carlos and Malu’ Alvarez Distinguished University Chair. Prior to his current appointment, he had served as the chancellor of the University of Texas System (UT) — becoming the first Hispanic to head a major public university system in the United States.

A native from Laredo, Texas, Cigarroa earned a B.S. in biology at Yale College and an M.D. with highest honors at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1983. During his 12 years of postgraduate training, he was chief resident at Harvard’s teaching hospital, Massachusetts General in Boston, and completed a fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in both pediatric surgery and transplantation surgery.

In 1995, he joined the faculty of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and was appointed its third president in October 2000, serving in that role until he became chancellor in 2009. In 2003, President George W. Bush appointed Cigarroa to serve on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science.

Cigarroa is the recipient of the Heart of Gold Award given by the American Heart Association and was named among the Top 25 Latinos in Education by the National Magazine of the American Latino. In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Cigarroa to serve on the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

He has served as an alumni fellow for the Yale Corporation since 2010 and has also been a member of the Alumni Schools Committee, which assists in recruiting students to Yale College.

Tickets for the tea will be determined by lottery and the sign-up form can be found online.

The Yale Corporation is the governing board and policy-making body for Yale University. For more information about the Corporation and its role in university governance, click here. The University Teas were founded in 2014 by the Office of the Secretary and Vice President for Student Life to give undergraduate, graduate, and professional students an opportunity to talk to accomplished alumni about their careers, Yale experience, and campus happenings.