Dr. Urban is a native Texan, born in Victoria, Texas. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Medical Degree from Texas A&M University. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and Endocrinology fellowship at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Dr. Urban joined UTMB in 1990. He has served as Fellowship Program Director and Division Director of the Endocrinology Division. In 2000, he founded and directed the Nelda C. & H.J. Lutcher Stark Diabetes Center. From 2005 to early 2018, he served as Professor and Chair of Internal Medicine. Since March 2018, he has served as Vice Dean, Clinical Research in the School of Medicine. In September of the same year, he was named Vice President and Chief Research Officer.

Dr. Urban is a Fellow, American College of Physicians and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha, the Endocrine Society, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He has received the NIH Clinical Associate Physician Award and served on NIH Study Sections.

Dr. Urban has 130 peer-review publications. He is the Principle Investigator of UTMB's Clinical Translational Science Award. He has three major research interests funded by NIH and foundations such as the McCoy Foundation and Moody Endowment. The projects include expansion of human umbilical cord blood stem cells to provide progenitors for granulocytes to fight infection (recently funded by an NIH STTR grant), use of cycled doses of testosterone in disease and aging to prevent the loss of skeletal muscle mass, and defining a new syndrome- Brain Injury Associated Fatigue and Altered Cognition (BIAFAC) that develops after brain injury and can be alleviated with growth hormone treatment.

Dr. Venkatesan was raised in Northwest Ohio and then North Texas. He attended undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin before returning to the Midwest for medical school at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Following medical school, Dr. Venkatesan completed his internal medicine residency and medical oncology fellowship at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston where he was also the chief fellow in medical oncology during 2017-2018 before joining as a faculty member in 2018.

Dr. James E. Veselka graduated with a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Houston Baptist University, Houston, TX. He received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1983, and completed both his internship and residency in family medicine at Baylor Affiliated Hospitals, also in Houston.

Dr. Veselka has been in private practice for 35 years in Angleton and has served his community in both the business and non-profit sectors as a leader, volunteer and medical director. He looks forward to serving you and your family.

Christi Lynn Wargo, CPNP-PC, is a board certified and Texas state licensed pediatric nurse practitioner. She provides care for pediatric patients in the department of Dermatology and General Academic Pediatrics at the Bay Colony and Galveston clinics. Christi graduated with her Associates in Nursing in 2001 from College of the Mainland and from there went on to the University of Texas Medical Branch, where she received her Bachelor's in Nursing in 2003 and then her Master's in Nursing for Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in 2008. She is currently enrolled once again in UTMB's School of Nursing for her Doctorate in Nursing Practice with plans to graduate in the Spring of 2022.

Prior to joining the dermatology department in October of 2016, Christi worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner for the Texas Children's Mobile Clinic, the FQHC Bell's Hill Community clinic in Waco, and she started the school-based Kruse clinic at Memorial Hermann Health Centers for Schools in Pasadena. In 2017, Christi started in the department of General Academic Pediatrics Bay Colony location on Wednesdays seeing primary care patients. She also occasionally provides care at the UTMB Pediatric After-Hours Urgent care clinic in League City. Christi has a great love of community and spends much of her free time volunteering both in Texas as well as abroad.

She is also currently serving on the board of the Houston Area Chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners as the Community Co-Chair and is Secretary for the Global Health Special Interest Group and member of the Pediatric Dermatology Special Interest Group. She is also a member of UTMB's Advanced Practice Providers Council. Christi is fluent in English and Spanish.

Dr. Juliana F. Yang is an Associate Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston. She is board certified in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine and she is also an Advanced Fellowship trained Interventional Gastroenterologist.

Dr. Yang completed her Bachelor of Science in Neurobiology with Honors and was a Presidential Scholar at The University of Texas at Austin. She earned the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree and completed the Internal Medicine Residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin followed by the 3-year Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. During her trainings, she developed strong interests in the field of Advanced Endoscopy and completed the 2-year Advanced Endoscopy Fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland. Her clinical interests are pancreaticobiliary diseases, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), luminal stent placements, third-lumen endoscopy (Per-oral endoscopic myotomy-POEM, Gastric POEM), colonoscopy, endoscopic suturing, endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR).