The Outstanding Recent Alumni Award
Sun-Ming Jessica Pan, MPH’19
Jessica Pan grew up between the vibrant cities of Shanghai and Taipei before making her way to the heart of Silicon Valley. While earning her MPH at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, she co-founded the school’s first-ever Gun Violence Action Week (GVAW)—a grassroots student initiative across the medical campus designed to tackle the U.S. gun violence epidemic through cross-disciplinary collaboration. What started as a bold student-led effort is now an annual event and official student club at Columbia’s medical campus, called the Columbia Student SURGE Initiative.
Jessica also held leadership roles across multiple student organizations, including the Interprofessional Student Advisory Board, Primary Care Progress, and Future Healthcare Leaders. She was also among the inaugural cohort of students selected for the Service-Learning Fellowship in Puerto Rico. As a student, she was awarded the Realizing Excellence through Action and Leadership Fund and the Epidemiology and Population Health Summer Institute Fund and capped off her academic journey by receiving the prestigious Columbia Alumni Association Campbell Award for Mailman School of Public Health.
In 2021, she joined the Mailman Alumni Board and co-chaired the newly established FORWARD Health Equity Committee. Her contributions also extended to Columbia University’s broader alumni community, serving on the Columbia Alumni Association’s Task Force on Belonging, Leaders Experience Steering Committee, and the Recent Alumni and Student Relations Committee. She was honored as the May 2021 Asian Prominent Alum by the Asian Columbia Alumni Association for organizing a social media driven bake sale raising $20,000 in two months in response to the Atlanta shooting and hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic.
Jessica’s passion for health, wellness and interprofessionalism inspired her to form the CAA Global Health and Wellness Network, Columbia’s first shared interest group in this space. Since its launch in 2024, the network has grown to over 250 alumni across six major U.S. cities. This past year, she also took on the role of Vice President of Marketing for the Global Board of Columbia Venture Community, where she continues to cultivate strong, innovative communities within the Columbia University ecosystem. Go Lions!
Shahbaz Salehi, MD, MPH’15, MSHIA
Dr. Shahbaz Salehi graduated from the Mailman School of Public Health’s Accelerated Program in the Health Policy and Management Department in 2015, and has a comprehensive educational background in medicine, health informatics, and nonprofit management. Dr. Salehi currently serves as the Director of Infection Control and Employee Health at Foothill Regional Medical Center in Tustin, CA, overseeing all infectious diseases and employee health initiatives for the hospital.
Under his leadership, Foothill Regional Medical Center has implemented innovative initiatives to significantly reduce catheter-associated infection, surgical site infections, and bloodstream infections. In addition to his role at the medical center, he is an instructor at UCLA Extension, where he teaches Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Since 2015, Dr. Salehi has been honored to serve as a Columbia Mailman Case Challenge judge. He has also actively mentored students since 2020, reflecting his deep passion for teaching and mentorship. Dr. Salehi was recently selected to serve on the Columbia Mailman Alumni Board and the Health Policy and Management Alumni Advisory Board.
Recipients of the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award:
- 2024: Sun-Ming Jessica Pan, MPH’19 and Shahbaz Salehi, MD, MPH’15, MSHIA
- 2022: Ashley Gripper, PhD, MPH '17
- 2021: Alison Bateman-House, PhD '14, MPH '07
- 2020: Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, MPH '15, DO, CPE, DABFM, FAAFP
- 2019: Cynthia Cox, MPH '11
- 2018: James M. Noble, MD, MS ’08
- 2017: Benjamin Mason Meier, JD, LLM, PhD (M.Phil.’06 and Ph.D. ’09)
- 2016: Carlos A. Cuevas, MPA ’12, MPH ’12