Berkeley Public Health student Lucia Calderon named a 2020 Switzer Fellow

We’re pleased to announce that UC Berkeley School of Public Health student Lucia Calderon has been named one of twenty 2020 Switzer Fellows.

The Switzer Fellowship offers one-year fellowships to highly talented graduate students in New England and California whose studies and career goals are directed toward environmental improvement and who clearly demonstrate leadership in their field.

Switzer Fellows are on the leading edge of environmental and social change through efforts in environmental science, policy, conservation, environmental justice, public health, economics, journalism, urban planning, business, law and more.  Switzer Fellows come from diverse social, academic and economic backgrounds. They are committed to interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral work, applied results, and collaborative leadership. Further, they are committed to their own professional development and to continually improving their leadership skills throughout their careers.

Calderon is pursuing her Master of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences and her Master of City Planning in Environmental Planning and Healthy Cities at UC Berkeley. She is focused on community-based participatory research (CBPR) for environmental justice and health equity. During her time at UC Berkeley, she has coordinated a youth participatory action research (YPAR) study in Salinas, California that aims to characterize and reduce exposure to cleaning product chemicals among Latina women and is also working on a community health needs assessment in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Prior to graduate school, Lucia was a community organizer with Californians for Pesticide Reform, where she worked to involve members of the Pájaro and Salinas Valley communities in the creation of public health-oriented agricultural policy. Her work with the coalition contributed to the creation of buffer zones around public schools and childcare facilities where many agricultural pesticides cannot be applied during the school day, as well as the phase-out of the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos in California.