Juan Carlos Ruiz Malagon is a Ph.D. candidate in public health UC Irvine. His research interests lie in structural determinants of health, health injustices among minoritized populations, and Latiné marginalized communities.
The Katherine and Robert Phalen Endowment is intended to highlight and support doctoral students whose current laboratory research shows future promise for preventing, treating, or understanding human disease. Malagon has been named the 2024 recipient of this fellowship.
This fellowship allows me to engage in meaningful work without worrying about the financial constraints that come with being first-generation/low-income.
Get To Know Juan Carlos Ruiz Malagon
I am a first-generation/low-income second-year doctoral student in the University of California, Irvine Public Health program. I center my work on qualitative methodologies and community partnerships to work towards justice-oriented health and social outcomes for minoritized communities. Currently, I am working on projects looking at the impact of gun violence on farmworker well-being, ways to reduce workplace violence for farmworkers, the social outcomes of immigration trauma on Latiné immigrants, and the impact criminalization has on HIV preventative care for transgender Latinas. From 2021 to 2023, I was a graduate fellow for the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Institute under the Research Department. My projects in the role ranged from issues on telehealth access among minoritized patients of color, especially low-income Latiné people, to a research study examining the impact COVID-19 had on small businesses operated by BIPOC individuals in California, Arizona, and Texas.
What this Fellowship Means To Me:
This fellowship allows me to engage in meaningful work without worrying about the financial constraints that come with being first-generation/low-income. The award enables me to continue my community-engaged work while simultaneously allowing me to pay educational expenses. Without support such as this award, students like me could not pursue meaningful educational endeavors.