Dr. Bernice B. Rumala earned a PhD and three Masters degrees from Columbia University and has served as a Fulbright-Fogarty and Harvard Research fellow.
Dr. Bernice B. Rumala earned a PhD and three Masters degrees from Columbia University and has served as a Fulbright-Fogarty and Harvard Research fellow. She previously served in senior leadership roles in academia, the public, and the private sectors. Dr. Rumala recently transitioned back to the United States after living in Iraq where she worked for the United Nations to provide her expertise for more than a year. This was at the height of the war on ISIS in Iraq. She has more than fifteen years of interdisciplinary experience as a change agent in the public, private, academic and international sectors.
Dr. Rumala has seen and experienced the challenges of inequities and the detrimental impacts to individuals and communities, specifically vulnerable communities and communities of color. This is unacceptable and should not be the norm. Having stemmed from an underserved community with lived experiences in growing inequities, her scholarly efforts and community-based efforts, including, global leadership and administrative leadership, have centered around interdisciplinary approaches to addressing equity as being integral to systems change. This includes addressing inequities through a multi-disciplinary, and multi-stakeholder lens with a specific emphasis on including marginalized stakeholders towards solutions. Dr. Rumala’s passion are to continue to use her lived experiences to address equity from all angles through leadership, mentoring, advocacy, capacity building, research, and partnerships.
Dr. Rumala is an authority on creative non-traditional interdisciplinary approaches for solutions and implementation. Her interest and expertise are in interdisciplinary innovation, thought leadership, systems change, organizational change, social determinants of equity, health equity, public health, human rights, gender equality, STEM, diversity and inclusion, social justice, community engaged research, social capital and addressing discrimination and implicit biases. Dr. Rumala also considers herself a global citizen based on international experiences in more than twenty countries. She has had global experiences in stable regions as well as regions impacted by war, conflict, and instability, with her most recent global experience in Iraq consulting for the United Nations. Dr. Rumala is also a lover of the arts as a tool to address social issues. In her “spare” time, she enjoys drafting a comedic series that is based in large part on her life and experiences
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