Leslie Lewis

Leslie R Lewis, PhD, MPH, is a Lecturer in the Urban Studies & Planning Program, a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, and an Academic Coordinator at UC San Diego. Her research interests include the social & environmental determinants of health, health inequalities, critical medical anthropology, and community-based participatory action research. She is the Founder and Director of the Community Hope Project, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that partners with communities locally and internationally to create programs that foster hope, justice, peace, education, sustainable living, and human flourishing, as well as facilitate connections across constructed boundaries of race/ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability. In her courses, she tries to illuminate and critically interrogate the broader systems, structures, ideologies, and policies that shape our experiences of identity formation, wellbeing, illness, aging, belongingness, and civic engagement. Dr. Lewis is deeply invested in the intellectual and emotional growth of her students, as well as in addressing “real world” challenges and injustices. As such, she works to create opportunities for students to connect with one another, with social change agents in local communities, and with global projects with transformative potential at their core.