The Heather Menzie Endowed Memorial Fund was established by Heather’s loving parents, Janet and Bob Menzie and her sisters, Morgan and Amanda. Heather was a graduate student here at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio and was accepted in her second year as a PhD candidate in Virology & Immunology. Heather is best remembered for her independent spirit, bright mind, and belief in fairness to all.
The endowed memorial fund will support graduate students that are highly motivated, academically successful, and servant leaders in both the community and within the university. The Graduate School has created a Junior Student-of-the-Year Award in Heather’s name that aligns with this criterion. The award will be announced at the school’s convocation on August 18 and awarded in the spring of 2018. The Heather Menzie Endowed Memorial Fund will ensure that this award becomes permanent and grows in perpetuity. August 18th also happens to be Heather’s birthday. Support to ensure student success today and in the future is a wonderful way to celebrate and remember Heather’s life.
Heather was driven to accomplish her passions. She loved science, playing the violin, and reading both science fiction and Shakespeare. Keith Krolick, one of Heather’s professors, recognized her for her good sense of self and what she needed to do to find success and satisfaction through the similarities she saw between science and music: “the parts creating the whole; the notes creating the symphony”. Krolick believes she loved the adventure as much as the outcome.
Others reminisce on Heather’s beautiful smile and how she inspired them to be better scientists and people. Her friends and colleagues remember her as a “rising star who in her short time at the university distinguished herself in many ways; most notably in her focus, maturity, passion for science and research, and kindness”. Not only was Heather’s thesis for acceptance as a PhD candidate returned to her with no corrections needed, but she also was told that her oral defense of it was one of the two best ever presented in the history of the school. Heather also realized one of her dreams when the Journal of Infectious Disease “published the paper she co-authored on the Sudan Virus.
Heather Menzie was unexpectedly and unimaginably taken away from us on May 13, 2015. Her legacy lives on in our hearts and her spirit is at the core of our university’s mission to make lives better. We will always appreciate what she brought to us and our school in her short life and are better people having known her.
If you have any questions, please contact Collette Wixom in the Office of Institutional Advancement, by email or call 210.567.2760.