We’re excited to announce that our team member, Kunga Denzongpa, PhD, MPH has recently been promoted to Director of Research & Evaluation. In this position she will continue to lead the evaluation activites for all of CCPH’s projects and now lead programmatic scope in various other programs within the organization.
Read our interview with her below to learn more about the work she’s doing.
What does your new role entail?
Kunga: The new role presents leadership opportunities for me in various areas of the work. I am now leading the programmatic scope of the Research Leadership Academy for NC CEAL. My MPH practicum training focused on program planning and implementation, so I am excited to put that into action! It also helps that I have a wonderful RLA team with a strong collaborative approach towards the work! I will also serve as a co-investigator for CEACR in addition to supporting the project’s evaluation which provides me with the opportunity to work across the different arms of CEACR, and not just evaluation.
Are there components of your previous role that you’ll continue to do? If so, what?
Kunga: I will still continue to lead the evaluation activities for all of CCPH’s projects, support evaluation for CEACR, and continue to manage our organizational salesforce account as the system administrator.
What are you most excited about in this new position?
Kunga: I am excited to have more time incorporated in my work to build relational engagements with our project partners, with both the academics and the community. I am also looking forward to continuing learning and growing my expertise in the field of community engagement!
What programs have you supported or led in the past year for CCPH that you enjoyed the most? and why?
Kunga: All our programs are incredibly valuable! CCPH is uniquely positioned to advocate for and support community-centeredness throughout a research project’s life, certainly more than ever now! Being positioned on the community-side of community-centered research as a researcher with academic training and working in partnership with academics has presented incredible opportunities for me to responsively bridge community priorities within the research context. I am excited to continue to be a part of innovating this engagement work.
Anything else that you’d like to share?
Kunga: I reflect a lot on what CCPH means to me, and the ways in which we bring forth a difference (or aim to) in the field of community engaged research. For me, I see CCPH as a community-advocate organization for community-engaged research, and we do that by positioning ourselves in institution-driven health research projects through partnerships with them. We have 26+ years of experience in driving community-campus partnerships, consistently reflecting and reflexively iterating on our approaches to community-centeredness in health research through those partnerships. Therefore, I encourage our external audiences to consider us, reach out to us, or engage with us to utilize our experience and expertise in community-centered community-campus partnered health research.
