Pictured left to right: Kara Bishop, Carlos E. Cardenas, Ph.D., Udbhav Ram, Corey Spears, M.D., Ph.D.Carlos E. Cardenas, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, has been named the 2025 recipient of the McMaster University Emerging Science Co-op Employer of the Year Award. This award recognizes employers and supervisors who act as mentors for co-op students and provide a rich and fulfilling learning experience.

Cardenas was nominated by third-year co-op undergraduate student Udbhav Ram. Ram is an international scholar studying Medical Physics at McMaster University. Cardenas served as Ram’s mentor during his time at UAB.

“Throughout my tenure, Dr. Cardenas continuously encouraged me to pursue challenging projects and provided the necessary resources and guidance to achieve my goals,” said Ram. “His mentorship has been a cornerstone of my professional growth, instilling confidence and fostering a proactive approach to my career development.”

After previously working together remotely on research projects in 2021, Cardenas wanted to find a way to bring Ram from Canada to work on site at UAB. During this process, they discovered the co-op program at McMaster University, which would allow Ram to travel to Alabama while receiving course credit.

Ram arrived on campus in January of 2024 and remained in Birmingham until the summer. During his co-op, he and Cardenas worked diligently on projects that explored the use of artificial intelligence tools to further radiation treatment and planning. They published two academic papers and submitted two abstracts to the American Association of Physicists and Medicine Annual Meeting, one of which won Ram an Undergraduate Poster Award. Read more about their work here.

In the wake of the co-op’s success, Cardenas hopes that UAB’s partnership with McMaster will result in more student exchanges between the two universities.

“I think through our experience, we’ve demonstrated that there are no borders to this program,” said Cardenas. “We did this internationally, and we’re very blessed that we were able to do that. I think this opens opportunities for other students from McMaster to potentially venture to other U.S. institutions.”

Now, a year later, the collaboration between Cardenas and Ram is far from over. Ram is back in Birmingham this summer, where he’ll participate in a second co-op session until mid-December. The two plan to continue work on a project they started during the original session.