Dr. Naik-Mathuria is the Division Chief of Pediatric Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), where she?holds the Granville T. Hall Chair in General Surgery.? Dr. Naik-Mathuria?is triple board certified in Pediatric Surgery, General Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care. She is an?experienced pediatric surgeon with over a decade of clinical experience in general pediatric abdominal and thoracic surgery, pediatric surgical oncology, and pediatric trauma.
Dr. Naik-Mathuria was born and raised in Mombasa, Kenya, she immigrated to Houston with her family during high school and graduated from Clements High School in Sugar Land. She attended Trinity University in San Antonio where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a double major (BS in Biology and BA in Psychology), then matriculated from medical school at Texas A+M Health Science Center where she was nominated to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. She joined the General Surgery residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (2003-2009), where she spent an additional year doing a research fellowship in fetal wound healing. Following completion of General Surgery residency, she moved to Los Angeles for Pediatric Surgery fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (2009-2011). She was then recruited back to Baylor in the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital where she was given the opportunity to develop and lead the recently established Level I pediatric trauma program. She completed a second fellowship in Surgical Critical Care and subsequently started the pediatric track of Baylor's surgical critical care fellowship. A few years later, she?obtained a?Master's?in Public Health?from John’s Hopkin’s Bloomberg school.?She was promoted to Associate Professor at Baylor 6 years after completing training (2018) and is currently pending approval for promotion to Professor at UTMB (2022).
Dr. Naik-Mathuria is an experienced and compassionate clinician. She is most passionate about caring for the most vulnerable – those affected by cancer or injury – and believes strongly in equitable, high-quality care for all. During the ten years that she worked at Texas Children's Hospital, she specialized?in surgical oncology and trauma in addition to practicing general neonatal and pediatric surgery. She received multiple awards during this time, including Texas Rising Star in Texas Monthly's SuperDoctors (2018),?Who’s Who in Medicine (2018), Best Doctors in Houston by Houstonia Magazine (2018, 2020, 2021), Texas SuperDoctors in Texas Monthly Magazine (2022). Her clinical academic excellence was awarded by Baylor College of Medicine through the Early Career Faculty Excellence Award (2017), the Women of Excellence Award (2020), and The Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery Faculty Clinical Excellence Award (2020).
Dr. Naik-Mathuria is an avid clinical outcomes, trauma, and public health researcher. She has authored over 100 publications and co-edited the primary textbook in pediatric trauma. In 2017, she was chosen as a Future Trauma Leader by the American College of Surgeons and is now considered a national leader in pediatric trauma. She has contributed to several national initiatives affecting the care of injured children and is frequently invited for national speaking engagements. Dr. Naik-Mathuria has an R01 award from the Centers for Disease Control to understand the epidemiology of firearm injury and violence in Harris County (Houston) and was the only surgeon to be funded by CDC in the first round following a 24-year federal ban on firearm-related funding. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Houston Chronicle. She is a strong advocate for child firearm safety and works with Houston city leadership and law enforcement through her leadership role on the Houston Mayor's Commission Against Gun Violence. Additionally, she is a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in the Firearm Injury Prevention and Safety program.
Dr. Naik-Mathuria is involved in several national surgical organizations at the leadership level. She completed a term on the executive board of the Pediatric Trauma Society, is the current Chair of the Advocacy committee of the AAP Section on Surgery, and the Vice-Chair of the Pediatric committee of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma. She also serves on several committees in the American Pediatric Surgical Association and Society of University Surgeons.
Finally, Dr. Naik-Mathuria has a special interest in global surgery, and travels to Africa to the town where she grew up frequently to work with local pediatric surgeons to increase access to high-quality pediatric surgical care, train local pediatric surgical fellows and residents, and build local capacity. She also works with the Rice 360 and bioengineering program to create low-cost innovative solutions for surgical problems in low resource settings. She plans to start a global surgery program at UTMB and train passionate residents and students to be leaders in global surgery.
As the new leader of pediatric surgery at UTMB, Dr. Naik-Mathuria is excited about programmatic development and research to ensure the highest quality of surgical care for the children and families in South Texas, to educate the next generation of surgeons, and to continue to advocate for child health and safety, and the highest level of health for all people.
Medical/Professional School:
MD, Texas A&M College of Medicine - College Station, TX, 2003
Residencies:
General Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine - Houston, TX, 2009
Fellowships:
Pediatric Surgery, University of Southern California, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles - Los Angeles, CA, 2011
Surgical Critical Care, Baylor College of Medicine - Houston, TX, 2012