You have to keep pushing and dreaming
Claudia Serrato, Class of 2024
By Laura Pohl, Contributing Writer
Now in a prestigious graduate program in data-driven healthcare at the University of Chicago, Governors State University (GovState) alumna Claudia Serrato '24 attributes her time in the University’s Honors College with her confidence and leadership skills.
More specifically, she credits Dr. David Rhea, Founding Dean of the Honors College.
“He was a pivotal mentor for me and I’m grateful for his continued support,” she said. “When I was a sophomore he helped me find my career field—I was interested in both health management and analytics.”
A year ago, Serrato graduated from GovState with a degree in Health Informatics with University Honors, and earned the Dr. Larry Levinson Award for her service as chair of the Honors Student Council. Soon after, she started a research assistant position through AmeriCorps at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Care, Community, and Culture (C4P) Program. She has conducted research at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, Illinois, and UChicago’s Medical Center in Chicago.
That led to her application and acceptance into the Master of Science in Precision Health degree at UChicago for fall 2025. The degree is one of the first of its kind. According to the program’s website, “this distinctive training equips students with the ability to better prevent disease, promote health, and reduce health disparities across communities.”
As a graduate of Bloom Trail High School, Serrato said she’s proud to inspire others. “It’s good for our community to see that we can achieve what we want despite community stereotypes,” Serrato said. “I tell others (younger than me), ‘you have to keep pushing and dreaming.' Life can be tough, it takes perseverance.”
Serrato said her leadership skills were honed when she joined the Honors College Student Council and Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) Club. In the Honors program, she gained campus research experience culminating with a life-changing trip to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Long Beach, California.
Rhea encouraged her to pursue research opportunities and supported her literature review research for NCUR.
“One of the most impactful moments of my academic journey was presenting my research at NCUR,” she said. “I was grateful to GovState’s Honors College for funding my trip. And I felt empowered as I spent time with my fellow Honors College students, many of whom, like me, were Hispanic. I will never forget the moment my roommate and I looked over the edge of our hotel balcony, and I said, ‘How did two girls from Chicago Heights get here?’ ‘’