Leslie R Lewis, Ph.D, MPH, is a Continuing Lecturer in Urban Studies & Planning at UC San Diego, and the Director of Urban Health and Equity Initiatives for the Program. Dr. Lewis' research and teaching interests include the social & environmental determinants of health, health inequities, critical medical anthropology, religious and social activisms, healthy aging, healthy placemaking, and community-based participatory action research. In her work, she tries to illuminate and critically interrogate the broader systems, structures, ideologies, and policies that shape our experiences of identity formation, wellbeing, illness & disability, 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 across our communities. As such, she works to create opportunities for students to connect with one another, with social change agents in local communities, and with global-local projects with transformative potential at their core. She has been honored with over fifteen awards for distinction in teaching, student advising, sustainability, and fostering equity, diversity and inclusion.
Dr. Lewis is a core member of the UCSD Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design which is focused on fostering justice and resilience through authentic engagement with local communities, innovative programming, bidirectional learning, and participatory research. She directs the Youth Scholar Activists (YSA) program, which brings local high school students together with volunteer College Mentors from UCSD to collectively interrogate and address significant social, ecological and climate challenges and injustices we face in society. She is the PI and Co-Director of the Life Course Scholars (LCS) program, an interdisciplinary, cross-generational, multi-site learning experience for UCSD undergraduates that aims to transform their understanding of aging, health, learning & research, as well as connect them more deeply to the “people and places” of surrounding San Diego communities. She is also the founder and director of the Community Hope Project, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that partners with communities locally and internationally to foster hope, justice, peace, health, and human flourishing.
In her teaching, research, and non-profit work, Dr. Lewis aims to facilitate connections between academic and community partners, and to promote a new paradigm for collaborative research and learning that is just, participatory, and multidirectional. Ultimately she wants to help develop alternatives to our current extractive, exploitative systems that both draw from, and perpetuate, our vast class, racial, gender and related social and economic inequities. She believes that collectively, with a commitment to restorative justice, regenerative design, and radical inclusion, we can harness our diverse perspectives, creative energies and cumulative wisdom and direct them toward improving our communities and world.
Dr. Lewis is a core member of the UCSD Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design which is focused on fostering justice and resilience through authentic engagement with local communities, innovative programming, bidirectional learning, and participatory research. She directs the Youth Scholar Activists (YSA) program, which brings local high school students together with volunteer College Mentors from UCSD to collectively interrogate and address significant social, ecological and climate challenges and injustices we face in society. She is the PI and Co-Director of the Life Course Scholars (LCS) program, an interdisciplinary, cross-generational, multi-site learning experience for UCSD undergraduates that aims to transform their understanding of aging, health, learning & research, as well as connect them more deeply to the “people and places” of surrounding San Diego communities. She is also the founder and director of the Community Hope Project, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that partners with communities locally and internationally to foster hope, justice, peace, health, and human flourishing.
In her teaching, research, and non-profit work, Dr. Lewis aims to facilitate connections between academic and community partners, and to promote a new paradigm for collaborative research and learning that is just, participatory, and multidirectional. Ultimately she wants to help develop alternatives to our current extractive, exploitative systems that both draw from, and perpetuate, our vast class, racial, gender and related social and economic inequities. She believes that collectively, with a commitment to restorative justice, regenerative design, and radical inclusion, we can harness our diverse perspectives, creative energies and cumulative wisdom and direct them toward improving our communities and world.