The College of Health and Human Sciences (CHHS) welcomed eleven new tenure track professors and one new department chair. The following blog series states where they came from, what they are teaching and what their research interests are.
Department of Health Science and Recreation Welcomes New Department Chair and Assistant Professor
The Department of Health Science and Recreation welcomes Yoshi Iwasaki as its new Department Chair and Vicky Gomez as an Assistant Professor.
Yoshi has over 20 years of academic experience within public university settings in the United States and Canada, He has been extensively involved in community-engaged research and education, knowledge mobilization, and capacity-building through addressing social justice issues which include poverty, empowerment and mental health.
Yoshi strives on embracing a Teacher-Scholar-Practitioner Model where he facilitates and mobilizes students, alumni, faculty, and community engagement to offer high-quality student-centered learning opportunities and to advance practices in public health and recreation fields, guided by the principles of power-sharing, integrity, and accountability.
photo credit Heartbox Photography
Vicky recently completed her Doctor of Public Health from UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. She was born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District and obtained her Bachelor of Science in Health Science and Bachelor of Arts in Raza Studies from San Francisco State University. She went on to obtain her Masters of Public Health (MPH) in Community Health Education from SFSU in 2009.
For the last decade, Vicky has worked as a research coordinator and community-based participatory researcher on various cancer-related studies. Her commitment to addressing cancer disparities in the Latino community served as the driving force to return to school for her doctorate degree and continue her research agenda as an assistant professor at SJSU.
Vicky’s doctoral research explored if digital storytelling was a feasible community-developed intervention for increasing colorectal cancer screening intention among Latinos who attend church in Alameda County. Her research pilot study was successful and now she will be testing the effectiveness of the community-developed digital storytelling intervention in the San José area. This semester she is teaching two sections of Health Science 104: Community Health Promotion to undergraduate students and one section of Health Science: 201 Groups and Training to MPH students. “I am excited to begin my career in the Department of Health Science and Recreation in the College of Health and Human Sciences,” says Vicky.