Cal State L.A. alumnus and Rhodes Scholar Dr. Leana S. Wen has been appointed to be commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.
The 31-year-old Wen was recently chosen by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and will begin overseeing the wide-ranging department on Jan. 15, 2015.
Wen was 13 when she enrolled in the Early Entrance Program at Cal State L.A. and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in biochemistry five years later. She received her medical training at Washington University School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where she was a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Wen was selected as a Rhodes Scholar in 2006 to study at the University of Oxford in England. She also served as a Global Health Fellow at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, where she researched trade policies and access to medicines. As a Department of Defense David L. Boren Fellow, she studied conflict and HIV in Kigali, Rwanda.
In 2007, Wen was one of two students who won a New York Times essay contest and was selected to accompany Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof on a trip to Africa.
Wen has credited Cal State L.A. with providing her with “many valuable opportunities and amazing mentors.”
“I feel strongly that I received an excellent, diverse education from Cal State L.A.,” she said in a 2009 interview with Cal State L.A. Today magazine.
In 2010, Wen returned to Cal State L.A. as the keynote speaker for the Honor’s Convocation.
As Baltimore’s health commissioner, Wen will direct a department that manages a wide range of services including disease prevention, animal control, food-service inspections and problems dealing with youth violence.
Photo: Dr. Leana S. Wen. (Photo credit: Baltimore mayor's office)
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