Kalan Tu is an Administrative Research Assistant in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently contributing his scholarship to pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Public Health with a minor in Literatures in English, and he is slated to complete his candidacy in 2020. While at the UCSD Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, he is working under the mentorship and guidance of Dr. Kiyomi Tsuyuki, in which he aids the research efforts of Dr. Tsuyuki and the iSTRIVE Lab. While at the iSTRIVE Lab, Kalan is assisting in reviewing access and implementation of healthcare to address health inequities in San Diego.

Kalan’s main research interests involve the intersections of healthcare systems and social justice. He applies a variety of qualitative research techniques to contribute his labor to investigations of how overall health outcomes are affected by broad-scale systems of oppression and violence. Kalan’s interests in social justice and health are informed by his experiences as a person of color in health education, and he is impassioned in his research to mitigating the inequities in healthcare access for marginalized communities – particularly for queer communities of color. With his research objectives, Kalan has specific interests in interventions addressing racial-based violence, gender-based violence, HIV transmission, refugee health, and occupational