Every year, the Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen hosts the Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Poster Symposium. The event encourages Aggies of all majors to prepare a poster presentation that details a research project they led in an undergraduate course. Attendees typically include students, faculty, staff and community members, who then complete scorecards to help determine the event’s top three presenters.
This year, the CURE Poster Symposium took place in early May and included nine research presentations. The student that received the highest score was biomedical sciences major Andres “Andy” Garza Jr. ’26.
Garza’s presentation was titled, “Understanding Cancer and Health Risks in the Lives of Firefighters” and took three months to prepare. It included informative cancer and health risk data pertaining to firefighters, anecdotes from his experience as a volunteer firefighter in Alamo, Texas, and featured a table display with firefighter protective clothing and equipment.
Garza has been a volunteer firefighter for the Alamo Fire Department for two years after having been a junior volunteer firefighter from the time he was 13 years old.
Garza was inspired to combine his career with his studies to address health issues affecting firefighters every day. “This was my opportunity to create a direct linkage between being a volunteer firefighter and a biomedical sciences student with a minor in public health and perform some undergraduate research on a problem that has been occurring within the fire service for a long time,” Garza said.
Garza’s main objective for his presentation was to raise awareness and inform the public, as well as first responders, on the risks of cancer within the fire service and the measures they can take to prevent cancer and other health complications.
“Cancer is the No. 1 cause of death within the fire service,” he said. “I felt it was necessary to use my knowledge and resources to help give back to my community by educating the public, as well as firefighters, about the dangers of cancer in this line of work. It’s important to become more aware of the importance of living a healthier life as a firefighter.”
Garza felt compelled to take his presentation with critical health information beyond the CURE Symposium at the Higher Education Center at McAllen and share it with his community and colleagues in Alamo. He proposed the idea to his fire chief, who then helped secure a meeting space in the town’s city hall for Garza to share his presentation to community members.
“We secured a meeting space at city hall for a public health information session that had the city commissioner, city manager, firefighters, family, friends and Higher Education Center at McAllen students and faculty in attendance,” Garza said.
Garza hopes everyone that listened to his presentation left with a better understanding on the risks of cancer in firefighting.
“Being a volunteer firefighter is something that I am deeply passionate about. I hope the firefighters that were present at city hall, received an increased level of understanding on the dangers of cancer within the fire service,” Garza said. “My hope is for them and the entire fire department to incorporate some of the preventative measures that were presented and apply it to their personal and professional lives.”