As a child, Hamsi Nathan learned that a great dentist and orthodontist can transform your smile — and the way you think about yourself. Today, Nathan knows that donor generosity can have the same life-changing impact.
Nathan is one of five recipients of the 2025 Presidential Ambassador Scholarship. Awarded annually, the scholarship includes a $5,000 stipend and valuable leadership and networking opportunities to represent the School of Dentistry at school and community events. For Nathan, this scholarship reinforced her passion for education and realize a childhood dream.
After developing an underbite at the self-conscious age of 12, Nathan’s orthodontist and oral surgeon used the latest techniques available to reverse the underbite and, unknowingly, set her on a career path. While her underbite disappeared, her beautiful smile and a newfound passion for dentistry remained. “I didn’t realize at the time how much that experience would guide my career path,” she said.
The Austin native secured an undergraduate degree in business from UT Austin with a specialization in science and technology. The mix would help her realize her goal of running her own dental practice while also staying abreast, and hopefully lending a hand, in new clinical and preventive dental research. Her plan from the start was always to attend the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry, whica, MD., Senior Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Health System at the 2025 Presidential Ambassh she found to be a perfect fit.
The journey hasn’t always been easy. She remembers being a scared, first-year student in her first anatomy class with cadavers. Thankfully, the upperclassmen came to her rescue by answering her questions and making her more comfortable with the understandably strange and unsettling process. Leadership, she discovered, is all about connection and building each other up; proudly serving her classmates as their vice president and through the teaching honors program, showing new students how to use the basic dental hand instruments.
In her time as a Presidential Ambassador Scholar, she received an insider peek at how school administrators, professors, mentors, tutors and donors model practical and impactful leadership at UT Health San Antonio.
Like her scholarship benefactors, paying it forward is also part of her career plan. Nathan works with CentroMed, providing dental care at the Haven for Hope homeless shelter.
Hamsi Nathan, School of DentistryI would do anything to give back to the school, because they have provided me with so much.
Pursuing a residency in oral surgery, she visualizes a hybrid career blending her own clinical practice, along with continued teaching and research opportunities, to contribute to the field she loves and the institutions that helped her on her way.
Thanks to passionate donors and educators who have supported her, Nathan is now a proud alumna of the School of Dentistry, Class of 2026 and a brilliant example of a new generation of caring dentists and orthodontists who are determined to pass on life-changing oral health.
