In October, The Center of Excellence in Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health welcomed its new Assistant Director, Heidi T. Kelly-Tuason, MPH, PhD(c). A 2010 alumna of the MCAH program, Heidi is excited to return to the SPH family!
Heidi is finishing her doctoral degree (expected 2021) in Community Health Sciences at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. She also holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and B.S. in Biology from UC San Diego. Her interests lie in community-based, social justice centered, mixed-methods participatory evaluation of programs, utilizing creative methods of digital storytelling, documentary filmmaking, music, and theater, as well as statistics through infographics and GIS mapping.
Since graduating from Berkeley’s MPH program, Heidi has worked in community health non-profits, education, and county health departments, most recently as Quality Improvement Coordinator for the Community Health Services division at the Alameda County Public Health Department. She also served as a community health planner and grants manager with immigrant communities at nonprofits including Asian Health Services, La Clínica de La Raza, Asian and Pacific Islander Mental Health Collaborative, and Community Health for Asian Americans. She also worked as a Clinic Manager at Silver Avenue Family Health Center with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and as Program Contract Manager for Mental Health Prevention programs at Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services.
Heidi has advocated for immigrant community health, serving on the boards of the American Public Health Association’s Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus and the Asian American Psychological Association’s Division on Filipino Americans. She taught at UCLA, UCSD, and CSULA, and taught and coordinated the Community Development and Social Justice Scholars program through UCLA’s Academic Advancement Program Graduate Mentoring and Research Programs.
When not at UC Berkeley, you can find Heidi playing music gigs with her husband (also a UC Berkeley alum), volunteering at Children’s Hospital with her therapy dog, training for duathlons, making earrings, and writing her PhD dissertation. She is expecting her first child in November of 2020.