ALUMNI PROFILES
Beth Altshuler
Beth is a public health epidemiologist and urban planner at Raimi + Associates who has been at the forefront of the healthy communities discipline for over ten years. Beth facilitates neighborhood, citywide, and regional planning processes that bridge gaps and foster trans-sector collaboration among and within public agencies, community organizations, and residents. She uses policy-relevant data analysis, creative relationship-building, and policy writing to engage residents in the future of their communities, create sustainable communities, and elevate health and social equity.
Victoria Benson ('16)
Originally from Washington State, Victoria moved to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University in 2005 where she majored in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. After graduating, she completed the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in San Francisco, an experiential leadership-training program. She then worked at Prevention Institute, a national public health non-profit based in Oakland focused on upstream prevention. Before beginning her graduate studies, Victoria spent time in Arequipa, Peru, volunteering at a childcare center, and at a hippotherapy center for special needs children. This summer, she interned at Mission Economic Development Agency working on the Mission Promise Neighborhood initiative and at Causa Justa :: Just Cause supporting the Plaza 16 Coalition. At UC Berkeley, she plans to strengthen her interdisciplinary skills to reconstruct inequitable institutions into equitable, supportive systems that better serve marginalized people and communities of color.
Evan Bissell ('16)
Evan is a concurrent masters student in City Planning and Public Health, with a BA in ethnic studies and painting from Wesleyan University. His work focuses on carceral geographies and networks of liberation as they relate to health and education. This summer, he worked with the critical participatory action research collective the Morris Justice Project in the South Bronx. Their work will focus on creative, art based strategies for advocating for safe communities in the context of aggressive, racialized policing. For the past eight years, he has facilitated multi-disciplinary, community-based research and art projects for both public and online installation. He is a co- coordinator of the Transformative Arts Track at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, an artist-in-residence at the American Cultures Engaged Scholar Program at UC Berkeley, and the director of knottedline.com and freedoms-ring.org.
Megan Calpin ('16)
Megan received a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied comparative municipal governance and worked in youth food justice education. Before returning to graduate school, she worked as a special education teacher in Oakland, California. Megan is interested in the intersection of community development, land use planning, and health. For her summer internship, she is working on a Community Profile of San Francisco's Richmond district at the City Planning Department of the City and County of San Francisco.
Natalie Camarena ('15)
As an undergraduate at University of California - San Diego, Natalie studied international studies and communications. After graduating, Natalie spent two years in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer and then spent a few more years working throughout California before starting the Master in Public Health program. For her summer internship, Natalie worked as an intern at the Mission Economic Development Agency and is generally interested in community development work with a focus on affecting conditions leading to health disparities faced by immigrant and/or disadvantaged communities.
Celina Chan ('15)
Celina graduated from Boston University with a BA in Sociology. Prior to graduate school, Celina completed a year of service through Americorps called the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship where she developed training curriculum, facilitated trainings, and convened a peer leadership group to plan and lead a statewide conference for other peer leaders. She worked for two years as a Research and Evaluation Associate at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center in New York City, a federally qualified health center that serves predominantly monolingual, low-income Asian Americans. Last summer, Celina interned at First 5 Contra Costa and conducted a participatory evaluation of their Community Engagement Program. Celina is interning at Prevention Institute during the summer of 2014 and works as a Graduate Student Researcher at the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC). Celina's interests include working with immigrant and minority populations, participatory methods, and transportation equity.
Lisa Chen
Lisa currently works as a long-range planner at the San Francisco Planning Department, where she helps develop and implement policies focused on issues such as transportation, infrastructure finance, parks & open spaces, streetscape design, affordable housing, and food systems. Previously, she worked at ChangeLab Solutions, where she partnered with government and community stakeholders to provide trainings, technical assistance, and research to incorporate health and equity goals into land use policies. She has also worked as an educator, researcher and project manager at organizations focused on youth development, sustainable food systems, and health impact assessment. She graduated with a B.A. in architecture from UC Berkeley, and holds a dual master’s degree from UC Berkeley in city planning and public health.
Roza Do
Roza is a Program Coordinator at the Center for Care Innovations (CCI), a project of the Tides Foundation and vital source of ideas, best practices and funding for California’s health care safety net. Roza develops and manages programs in CCI's Innovation portfolio focused on building capacity for human-centered design in community health centers and public hospitals and developing strategic partnerships across sectors to support the adoption and spread of innovative approaches to improve health and health care for vulnerable populations. Previously, Roza worked as a project manager and researcher at organizations leading local and national initiatives to improve chronic care and promote healthy eating and active living, including the Pacific Business Group on Health, Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit, and Oakland Unified School District. She was a PLUS Leadership Fellow at UC Berkeley's Center for Cities and Schools, providing strategic and analytical support for the implementation of a district-wide full-service community schools initiative to advance health equity. Roza received a BA in public health and public policy from UC Berkeley, as well as her MPH in health policy and management and MCP in housing, community and economic development.
Julia Ehrman ('15)
Julia received her BA in English and American Literature from New York University with minors in Public Health and French. Her interest in the relationship of city government and planning to social and health inequities in cities grew out of her experience as a bicycle advocate in New York City and in the Bay Area. At UC Berkeley, Julia has done research on student transportation planning with the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools. Julia is now building on that research as an intern at the San Francisco Unified School District, where she is working to develop healthy, equitable, and sustainable transportation programs for San Francisco students.
Nora Gilbert ('15)
Nora graduated from Wesleyan University in 2010 with a BA in Sociology. Before graduate school, Nora worked as a program coordinator and technical advisor for healthy food retail projects at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. While at Berkeley, Nora interned at PolicyLink in Oakland, focusing on health equity and food access projects, and at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington DC, working on community economic development initiatives in rural America. Nora currently works as the Program Coordinator for the Berkeley Food Institute, an interdisciplinary research and policy center focused on transformative food systems change. She is interested in the role of food and agriculture in health equity and economic development strategies.
Lauren Heumann ('15)
Lauren studied Environmental Science at Western Washington University. Since then, she’s been living in the Bay, working for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, studying the health impacts of mixed use zoning, and the Environmental Working Group, researching food and agriculture policy. During this time she could also be found volunteering with a number of local food security projects. Today, her work focuses on food access, community development, and health equity, which she is currently putting to use writing the City of Richmond’s Climate Action Plan.
Chantal Hildebrand ('16)
Chantal graduated from Vassar College in 2008 with a BA in sociology. After graduating college, she joined the Peace Corps where she served for three years in Burkina Faso as a Community Healthy Development worker. Eager to learn more about the impact of place on health, Chantal took a position with Shack Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in Cape Town, South Africa where she worked with slum dweller communities as they designed and implemented slum-upgrading programs within their own communities. Through this work and her first year of graduate school, Chantal is interested in exploring how basic infrastructure and an access to sanitation impacts women’s health and well-being in slum settlements.
Dan Lindheim
Dan currently teaches public policy at UC Berkeley. Dan was City Manager of Oakland from 2008-2011. Previously, he was Director of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency. In prior lives, he was CEO of a leading video and computer graphics software company, a Senior Counsel for the House of Representatives, and a Senior Project Economist for the World Bank. He also headed a regional office for the Chilean Ministry of Housing and was a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Services Research. Dan received his MCP and PhD from the Department of City and Regional Planning as well as his MPH from the School of Public Health. He also has a JD from Georgetown and is a member of the California Bar.
Jen Loy
Jen is a Community Relations Specialist in UC Berkeley's Local Government and Community Relations. In this role, Jen supports efforts related to the development of the Richmond Bay campus, and manages Berkeley based initiatives including the Chancellor's Community Partnership Fund, Move Out, and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Student-Neighbor Relations. Jen draws on a long history of community and economic development experience in the Bay Area and a passion for social and health equity. An East Bay resident since 1991 when she arrived to attend Cal as an undergrad, Jen moved to Richmond in 2007 and has worked with her neighbors to secure safe recreational space for youth, families and seniors. She has also worked for the Richmond City Manager's office, helping to implement the Community Health and Wellness Element of the city's General Plan. Before moving to Richmond, she was the founder of an arts and culture nonprofit and a small business entrepreneur in Oakland, where she and her business partner helped establish the Oakland Art Murmur. Jen holds a dual master's degree in city planning and public health from UC Berkeley. Her research and community-driven work has been based on participatory processes and meaningful resident engagement.
Jessica Nguyen ('15)
Jessica completed her BA at the University of Washington in Community, Environment & Planning, and worked for an affordable housing advocacy non-profit in Seattle afterwards. During her time at Berkeley, she has held internships at the City of Oakland, where she worked primarily on outreach for Complete Streets projects and traffic collision data analysis; SafeTREC, focusing on pedestrian and bicycle safety; and the San Francisco Department of Public Health, evaluating the impact of a city-wide physical activity program. Jessica's research and work experiences have led her to become interested in the co-benefits of active transportation, physical activity, and social cohesion.
Claire Quiner ('16)
Claire has worked as a molecular virologist for the past 5 years. Currently studying the interaction of the Dengue virus with its mosquito vector, Ae. Aegyti, and how it interacts with and transmits disease to human populations, her research has spanned many aspects of molecular virology and medical entomology. She is particularly interested in the study and prevention of outbreaks of infectious disease due to population shifts and global trends towards urbanization. Claire was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. During high school she began traveling to the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, and has lived and taught for extended stints in San Cristóbal de las Casas and surrounding Indigenous villages. It was here that she sharpened her views on justice, participatory democracy, health, happiness, community and suffering. While working toward her B.S in Biology from Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisc., she remained working with underserved populations, and continues to do so. Claire views the study of epidemiology/Biostats as a means to integrate her passions for social justice, scientific rigor and community health.
Erika Rincón Whitcomb
As a Program Associate at PolicyLink, Erika supports state policy advocacy and research to address infrastructure, environmental, and health inequities facing low-income communities of color and disadvantaged unincorporated communities in California. Prior to joining PolicyLink, she conducted research on food infrastructure and access for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Erika also brings experience in organizing statewide consumer awareness campaign efforts with Latino Issues Forum, and has previously served as an Alameda County Safe Routes to Schools Program Coordinator and a College Advisor for Richmond High School. She holds a dual Masters in City Planning and Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Inspired by her family, Erika’s value and commitment to social justice and equity led her to work at PolicyLink.
Nicole Schneider
Nicole is the Executive Director at Walk San Francisco. Nicole came to Walk San Francisco in 2013 with a background in active transportation, urban planning, and public health. As a consultant, Nicole helped develop climate change adaptation plans for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability, and provided bicycle and pedestrian planning services to the Alameda County Transportation Commission. Previously, Nicole worked at Prevention Institute, training community groups in policy and media advocacy strategies for healthy, equitable places.
Lauren Valdez ('16)
Coming from an environmentally burdened community in Los Angeles, Lauren's work focuses on improving health outcomes in low-income communities of color. Lauren has worked in the field of Environmental Justice as a community organizer and health correspondent in Wilmington, CA. Lauren believes in using the power of multimedia and online tools for community storytelling, education, and advocacy. Professionally, Lauren has years of experience in producing multimedia, community development, and coordinating nonprofit projects internationally. Lauren received a BA in Architecture with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from UC Berkeley and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Brazil.
Mar Velez ('15)
Mar was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles to two hard working immigrant parents from the state of Puebla, Mexico. The oldest of four children and the first in her family to attend college, Mar graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelors in Ethnic Studies. As an activist scholar, Mar applied frameworks of power, privilege, critical race and social movements to her studies, as well as to her activist work on campus for campus climate and educational equity. Through her work in these areas, Mar’s interests became more focused around the built environment and the disparity of resources in low-income areas and populations. From quality of education to economic development and displacement—Mar acknowledges that place, race and space disproportionately impacts people of color and low-income communities and their quality of life. Mar hopes to focus on environmental health based on land use and transportation decision-making that affect marginalized communities. She is particularly interested in seeing how residents of these communities can become empowered through popular education methods, such as storytelling and technology to access these processes for community empowerment and self-realization. Currently Mar is interning with the action advocacy organization PolicyLink at their communications office in New York City as their Advocacy Communications Storyteller intern.
Beth is a public health epidemiologist and urban planner at Raimi + Associates who has been at the forefront of the healthy communities discipline for over ten years. Beth facilitates neighborhood, citywide, and regional planning processes that bridge gaps and foster trans-sector collaboration among and within public agencies, community organizations, and residents. She uses policy-relevant data analysis, creative relationship-building, and policy writing to engage residents in the future of their communities, create sustainable communities, and elevate health and social equity.
Victoria Benson ('16)
Originally from Washington State, Victoria moved to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University in 2005 where she majored in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. After graduating, she completed the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in San Francisco, an experiential leadership-training program. She then worked at Prevention Institute, a national public health non-profit based in Oakland focused on upstream prevention. Before beginning her graduate studies, Victoria spent time in Arequipa, Peru, volunteering at a childcare center, and at a hippotherapy center for special needs children. This summer, she interned at Mission Economic Development Agency working on the Mission Promise Neighborhood initiative and at Causa Justa :: Just Cause supporting the Plaza 16 Coalition. At UC Berkeley, she plans to strengthen her interdisciplinary skills to reconstruct inequitable institutions into equitable, supportive systems that better serve marginalized people and communities of color.
Evan Bissell ('16)
Evan is a concurrent masters student in City Planning and Public Health, with a BA in ethnic studies and painting from Wesleyan University. His work focuses on carceral geographies and networks of liberation as they relate to health and education. This summer, he worked with the critical participatory action research collective the Morris Justice Project in the South Bronx. Their work will focus on creative, art based strategies for advocating for safe communities in the context of aggressive, racialized policing. For the past eight years, he has facilitated multi-disciplinary, community-based research and art projects for both public and online installation. He is a co- coordinator of the Transformative Arts Track at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, an artist-in-residence at the American Cultures Engaged Scholar Program at UC Berkeley, and the director of knottedline.com and freedoms-ring.org.
Megan Calpin ('16)
Megan received a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied comparative municipal governance and worked in youth food justice education. Before returning to graduate school, she worked as a special education teacher in Oakland, California. Megan is interested in the intersection of community development, land use planning, and health. For her summer internship, she is working on a Community Profile of San Francisco's Richmond district at the City Planning Department of the City and County of San Francisco.
Natalie Camarena ('15)
As an undergraduate at University of California - San Diego, Natalie studied international studies and communications. After graduating, Natalie spent two years in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer and then spent a few more years working throughout California before starting the Master in Public Health program. For her summer internship, Natalie worked as an intern at the Mission Economic Development Agency and is generally interested in community development work with a focus on affecting conditions leading to health disparities faced by immigrant and/or disadvantaged communities.
Celina Chan ('15)
Celina graduated from Boston University with a BA in Sociology. Prior to graduate school, Celina completed a year of service through Americorps called the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship where she developed training curriculum, facilitated trainings, and convened a peer leadership group to plan and lead a statewide conference for other peer leaders. She worked for two years as a Research and Evaluation Associate at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center in New York City, a federally qualified health center that serves predominantly monolingual, low-income Asian Americans. Last summer, Celina interned at First 5 Contra Costa and conducted a participatory evaluation of their Community Engagement Program. Celina is interning at Prevention Institute during the summer of 2014 and works as a Graduate Student Researcher at the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC). Celina's interests include working with immigrant and minority populations, participatory methods, and transportation equity.
Lisa Chen
Lisa currently works as a long-range planner at the San Francisco Planning Department, where she helps develop and implement policies focused on issues such as transportation, infrastructure finance, parks & open spaces, streetscape design, affordable housing, and food systems. Previously, she worked at ChangeLab Solutions, where she partnered with government and community stakeholders to provide trainings, technical assistance, and research to incorporate health and equity goals into land use policies. She has also worked as an educator, researcher and project manager at organizations focused on youth development, sustainable food systems, and health impact assessment. She graduated with a B.A. in architecture from UC Berkeley, and holds a dual master’s degree from UC Berkeley in city planning and public health.
Roza Do
Roza is a Program Coordinator at the Center for Care Innovations (CCI), a project of the Tides Foundation and vital source of ideas, best practices and funding for California’s health care safety net. Roza develops and manages programs in CCI's Innovation portfolio focused on building capacity for human-centered design in community health centers and public hospitals and developing strategic partnerships across sectors to support the adoption and spread of innovative approaches to improve health and health care for vulnerable populations. Previously, Roza worked as a project manager and researcher at organizations leading local and national initiatives to improve chronic care and promote healthy eating and active living, including the Pacific Business Group on Health, Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit, and Oakland Unified School District. She was a PLUS Leadership Fellow at UC Berkeley's Center for Cities and Schools, providing strategic and analytical support for the implementation of a district-wide full-service community schools initiative to advance health equity. Roza received a BA in public health and public policy from UC Berkeley, as well as her MPH in health policy and management and MCP in housing, community and economic development.
Julia Ehrman ('15)
Julia received her BA in English and American Literature from New York University with minors in Public Health and French. Her interest in the relationship of city government and planning to social and health inequities in cities grew out of her experience as a bicycle advocate in New York City and in the Bay Area. At UC Berkeley, Julia has done research on student transportation planning with the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools. Julia is now building on that research as an intern at the San Francisco Unified School District, where she is working to develop healthy, equitable, and sustainable transportation programs for San Francisco students.
Nora Gilbert ('15)
Nora graduated from Wesleyan University in 2010 with a BA in Sociology. Before graduate school, Nora worked as a program coordinator and technical advisor for healthy food retail projects at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. While at Berkeley, Nora interned at PolicyLink in Oakland, focusing on health equity and food access projects, and at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington DC, working on community economic development initiatives in rural America. Nora currently works as the Program Coordinator for the Berkeley Food Institute, an interdisciplinary research and policy center focused on transformative food systems change. She is interested in the role of food and agriculture in health equity and economic development strategies.
Lauren Heumann ('15)
Lauren studied Environmental Science at Western Washington University. Since then, she’s been living in the Bay, working for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, studying the health impacts of mixed use zoning, and the Environmental Working Group, researching food and agriculture policy. During this time she could also be found volunteering with a number of local food security projects. Today, her work focuses on food access, community development, and health equity, which she is currently putting to use writing the City of Richmond’s Climate Action Plan.
Chantal Hildebrand ('16)
Chantal graduated from Vassar College in 2008 with a BA in sociology. After graduating college, she joined the Peace Corps where she served for three years in Burkina Faso as a Community Healthy Development worker. Eager to learn more about the impact of place on health, Chantal took a position with Shack Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in Cape Town, South Africa where she worked with slum dweller communities as they designed and implemented slum-upgrading programs within their own communities. Through this work and her first year of graduate school, Chantal is interested in exploring how basic infrastructure and an access to sanitation impacts women’s health and well-being in slum settlements.
Dan Lindheim
Dan currently teaches public policy at UC Berkeley. Dan was City Manager of Oakland from 2008-2011. Previously, he was Director of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency. In prior lives, he was CEO of a leading video and computer graphics software company, a Senior Counsel for the House of Representatives, and a Senior Project Economist for the World Bank. He also headed a regional office for the Chilean Ministry of Housing and was a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Services Research. Dan received his MCP and PhD from the Department of City and Regional Planning as well as his MPH from the School of Public Health. He also has a JD from Georgetown and is a member of the California Bar.
Jen Loy
Jen is a Community Relations Specialist in UC Berkeley's Local Government and Community Relations. In this role, Jen supports efforts related to the development of the Richmond Bay campus, and manages Berkeley based initiatives including the Chancellor's Community Partnership Fund, Move Out, and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Student-Neighbor Relations. Jen draws on a long history of community and economic development experience in the Bay Area and a passion for social and health equity. An East Bay resident since 1991 when she arrived to attend Cal as an undergrad, Jen moved to Richmond in 2007 and has worked with her neighbors to secure safe recreational space for youth, families and seniors. She has also worked for the Richmond City Manager's office, helping to implement the Community Health and Wellness Element of the city's General Plan. Before moving to Richmond, she was the founder of an arts and culture nonprofit and a small business entrepreneur in Oakland, where she and her business partner helped establish the Oakland Art Murmur. Jen holds a dual master's degree in city planning and public health from UC Berkeley. Her research and community-driven work has been based on participatory processes and meaningful resident engagement.
Jessica Nguyen ('15)
Jessica completed her BA at the University of Washington in Community, Environment & Planning, and worked for an affordable housing advocacy non-profit in Seattle afterwards. During her time at Berkeley, she has held internships at the City of Oakland, where she worked primarily on outreach for Complete Streets projects and traffic collision data analysis; SafeTREC, focusing on pedestrian and bicycle safety; and the San Francisco Department of Public Health, evaluating the impact of a city-wide physical activity program. Jessica's research and work experiences have led her to become interested in the co-benefits of active transportation, physical activity, and social cohesion.
Claire Quiner ('16)
Claire has worked as a molecular virologist for the past 5 years. Currently studying the interaction of the Dengue virus with its mosquito vector, Ae. Aegyti, and how it interacts with and transmits disease to human populations, her research has spanned many aspects of molecular virology and medical entomology. She is particularly interested in the study and prevention of outbreaks of infectious disease due to population shifts and global trends towards urbanization. Claire was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. During high school she began traveling to the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, and has lived and taught for extended stints in San Cristóbal de las Casas and surrounding Indigenous villages. It was here that she sharpened her views on justice, participatory democracy, health, happiness, community and suffering. While working toward her B.S in Biology from Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisc., she remained working with underserved populations, and continues to do so. Claire views the study of epidemiology/Biostats as a means to integrate her passions for social justice, scientific rigor and community health.
Erika Rincón Whitcomb
As a Program Associate at PolicyLink, Erika supports state policy advocacy and research to address infrastructure, environmental, and health inequities facing low-income communities of color and disadvantaged unincorporated communities in California. Prior to joining PolicyLink, she conducted research on food infrastructure and access for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Erika also brings experience in organizing statewide consumer awareness campaign efforts with Latino Issues Forum, and has previously served as an Alameda County Safe Routes to Schools Program Coordinator and a College Advisor for Richmond High School. She holds a dual Masters in City Planning and Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Inspired by her family, Erika’s value and commitment to social justice and equity led her to work at PolicyLink.
Nicole Schneider
Nicole is the Executive Director at Walk San Francisco. Nicole came to Walk San Francisco in 2013 with a background in active transportation, urban planning, and public health. As a consultant, Nicole helped develop climate change adaptation plans for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability, and provided bicycle and pedestrian planning services to the Alameda County Transportation Commission. Previously, Nicole worked at Prevention Institute, training community groups in policy and media advocacy strategies for healthy, equitable places.
Lauren Valdez ('16)
Coming from an environmentally burdened community in Los Angeles, Lauren's work focuses on improving health outcomes in low-income communities of color. Lauren has worked in the field of Environmental Justice as a community organizer and health correspondent in Wilmington, CA. Lauren believes in using the power of multimedia and online tools for community storytelling, education, and advocacy. Professionally, Lauren has years of experience in producing multimedia, community development, and coordinating nonprofit projects internationally. Lauren received a BA in Architecture with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from UC Berkeley and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Brazil.
Mar Velez ('15)
Mar was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles to two hard working immigrant parents from the state of Puebla, Mexico. The oldest of four children and the first in her family to attend college, Mar graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelors in Ethnic Studies. As an activist scholar, Mar applied frameworks of power, privilege, critical race and social movements to her studies, as well as to her activist work on campus for campus climate and educational equity. Through her work in these areas, Mar’s interests became more focused around the built environment and the disparity of resources in low-income areas and populations. From quality of education to economic development and displacement—Mar acknowledges that place, race and space disproportionately impacts people of color and low-income communities and their quality of life. Mar hopes to focus on environmental health based on land use and transportation decision-making that affect marginalized communities. She is particularly interested in seeing how residents of these communities can become empowered through popular education methods, such as storytelling and technology to access these processes for community empowerment and self-realization. Currently Mar is interning with the action advocacy organization PolicyLink at their communications office in New York City as their Advocacy Communications Storyteller intern.
For more information about the MCP+MPH concurrent degree program, review the concurrent degree program pages for the School of Public Health and College of Environmental Design.