Cassondra Marshall receives 2021 Outstanding Young Professional Award from APHA

Cassondra (Cassie) Marshall, DrPH, MPH, assistant professor in residence at the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, has received the 2021 Outstanding Young Professional Award from the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). The award honors individuals who deserve recognition early in their careers because of their professional accomplishments, initiative, and dedication to the field.

“I feel beyond honored to receive this award from the Sexual and Reproductive Health section of APHA,” said Marshall. “I am deeply passionate about this field that I have been working in for over a decade.”

Dr. Marshall received her BA from Stanford in human biology, her MPH in community health sciences from UCLA, and her DrPH in public health from Berkeley Public Health.  She was appointed to the Berkeley Public Health faculty in 2018 and teaches courses in the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health program. The goal of her research is to advance reproductive and maternal health equity by developing, implementing, and evaluating person-centered interventions and care delivery models that meet the needs of and improve the health of underserved populations.

Recent projects led by Dr. Marshall include National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities–funded research to advance the study of patient-centered reproductive health care delivery among Black and Latina women with type 2 diabetes.

In 2020, along with co-principal investigators Dr. Anu Manchikanti-Gomez of the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare and UCSF’s Dr. Monica McLemore, Marshall received a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Engagement award to advance research on community-based models of doula care to address racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes. Dr. Gomez nominated Marshall for the APHA Outstanding Young Professional Award.

“The selection committee was extremely impressed by Dr. Marshall’s commitment to sexual and reproductive health services research,” said Aline Gubrium, former chair of the SRH section. “We are thrilled that (she) will be joining this esteemed group.”

Founded in 1975, the SRH Section (formerly the Population, Reproductive, and Sexual Health Section) of APHA works to improve the health of women, men, and children by ensuring that sexual and reproductive health remain major domestic and international priorities.