Undergrad Destiny Brijettney Ceja wins Henrik L. Blum Award for Distinguished Social Action
Public Health and Neuroscience major’s next step is applying to medical school
- 4 min. read ▪ Published
Graduating senior Destiny Brijettney Ceja has been awarded the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Henrik L. Blum Award for Distinguished Social Action.
The award is given annually in memory of Professor Henrik L. Blum to a graduating student whose public health activities symbolize a spirit of social justice and democratic action.
Ceja received an astounding seven nominations from her fellow students. One nominator wrote, “She truly embodies the three qualities that Professor Blum valued most: caring, creativity, and courage, not just in what she says, but in what she consistently does.”
Another wrote, “Destiny has a graceful, uplifting presence that allows her to engage one-on-one with her peers, and she is dedicated to providing tangible solutions to support immigrant communities.”
Ceja, who is graduating with bachelor’s degrees in both neurobiology and public health, grew up in Santa Ana, California, with big plans for her future.
“I first wanted to join the military as an army doctor,” Ceja said. “But in 8th grade, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and that disqualified me from any military service. It was devastating because that was my childhood dream.”
But that setback didn’t prevent Ceja from pursuing her goals. After a high school career marked by excellence in speech and debate, she entered UC Berkeley as a freshman with the intention of pursuing a medical career outside the military. But she still had some misgivings.
“As I navigated the health system as a person of color and as a woman, and looking at my low-income immigrant family, I became aware of a lot of things about it that were very confusing,” she said.
This experience with the healthcare system led her to embrace a major in public health, alongside neuroscience.
While at Berkeley, Ceja threw herself into activities focused on healthcare with a social justice lens. She volunteered as a bilingual translator with the Migrant Clinicians Network, which provides tele-health for immigrants from all over Latin America, and also volunteered with the Sidewalk School, a nonprofit that provides education services for asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
She also worked as a volunteer medical assistant at the Ashland Free Medical Clinic in San Lorenzo, which gave her a glimpse at the type of healthcare facility that she someday would like to open.
“A lot of the clients were Spanish-speaking elder people,” she said. The clinic offered free medical, dental, optometry, and mental health care services. “I helped with the clinic flow. I thought, ‘This is what healthcare could really look like.’”
Her time in Public Health 155A, a course on research skills in medicine and public health, taught by Dr. Mahader Tamene, showed her how medicine can be grounded in the values of public health, including equity and social justice.
“It taught us research skills on how to run clinical trials, what advocacy looks like, and how pursuing medicine is tied to public health and public policy,” Ceja said. “I found her so inspirational and passionate about what she was talking about. I learned so much in that class.”
Ceja will be returning to Southern California after commencement to spend a gap year working as a speech and debate coach and potentially at a community health network, before applying to medical school, intent on pursuing medicine through the prism of public health.
“I think that as a person of color, as a woman, as someone who has a disability, pursuing medicine is already such a political stance and I’m passionate about wanting to make positive change, community bridging, and fostering all of these welcoming relationships when it comes to public health and communities,” she said.
