Congratulations to our Program Manager, Tina Lu, who has been awarded a Berkeley Public Health Staff Special Award for the 22/23 year. Tina received the Abby Rincón Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging Award. Tina Lu provides support with the Center of Excellence in MCAH activities, student support, and administrative tasks. Tina also manages the undergraduate Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health (MCAH) Leadership, Education, and Advancement in Undergraduate Pathways (LEAP) Training Program, a federal MCHB training grant that provides hands-on academic and professional training opportunities to undergraduate students who identify with underrepresented communities and are interested in MCAH. Through her role, Tina serves as a liaison for the cascading mentorship program between Center of Excellence graduate student trainees and MCAH LEAP undergraduate trainees.
Abby Rincón has been recognized as a longtime advocate for diversity at UC Berkeley. Rincón retired in 2019 after serving as the Director of Diversity at the School of Public Health for a decade and the Director of the Office for Graduate Diversity and Assistant Dean for Graduate Diversity for three years. This award is presented to staff who build upon Rincón's impact across various areas, including anti-racist education, teaching, community outreach, eliminating barriers/increasing access and academic success for first-generation and underrepresented students, creating safe spaces for people who have historically faced barriers to higher education, and leadership support and mentoring.
This is what Julianna Deardorff, PhD, who serves as the Director of Center of Excellence in MCAH, had to say about Tina:
In addition to her required responsibilities for our two MCAH training grants, Tina Lu has been serving as staff co-advisor, along with the Program Coordinator of RISE, for the UC Berkeley Minorities in Health (MIH) Coalition. This is above and beyond her regular responsibilities. Tina elected to serve in this role for MIH because she felt it would benefit our LEAP program, and it underscores her strong commitment to supporting historically underrepresented students to consider public health as a career option. The UC Berkeley MIH Coalition is a group of student leaders who plan the annual student-led MIH Conference to educate high school and college students on health disparities that disproportionately affect underrepresented communities and connect students from underrepresented populations to different career paths in health. The MIH Coalition is comprised of representatives from the following on-campus student organizations: Asian American Pacific Islander Health Research Group (AAPIHRG), Black Students in Health Association (BSHA), Comunidad for Health Equity (CHE), Cal Undergraduate Public Health Coalition, and Pilipinx Association for Health Careers (PAHC). As staff co-advisors, Lu and the RISE office have directly engaged with undergraduate students interested in the field of public health and are strengthening our relationships with on-campus resources. For the Spring 2023 MIH Conference, Tina and one of our MCAH graduate students facilitated a workshop that introduced attendees to the MCH Leadership Competencies and careers in MCAH. This was an innovative contribution, and Tina's work in this space has positioned us more centrally on campus and elevated the School, MCAH and LEAP to reach a larger, diverse group of undergrads.
Congratulations, Tina, and thank you for all the work you do!