Frank Ortiz

Public Health PhD Student 

Frank graduated from UC Merced with a B.A. in Political Science. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Health. He is originally from Aguascalientes, Mexico, and immigrated to Richmond, California when he was 3 years old. He has worked for the UC Merced Blum Center for 2 years, where he lead the Student Action Council for the Eradication of Poverty and Inequality. In this role, he utilized data to inform decisions and advocate for space to open an on-campus pantry; he also connected with the local homeless shelter and on-campus organizations to increase capacity to offer food services. During his final year as an undergraduate, he began working with Dr. Díaz Rios on a project that involved conducting micro focus groups to evaluate Basic Need’s services, and understand culture barriers to food access for students at UC Merced. He is interested in continuing his work of service evaluation to further understand barriers to food access and nutrition education, and better services at UC Merced.