UCLA Fielding graduate student honored with President’s Award at UC Regents meeting
UCLA Fielding graduate student Jack Feng has been recognized for his leadership and advocacy.
UCLA graduate student Zhiting Jack Feng was honored Wednesday with the President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership at the UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco.
UC President James B. Milliken introduced the award, which was established in 2010 to recognize undergraduate, graduate and professional students, as well as campus-based student organizations, for outstanding efforts in promoting and supporting multicampus and presidential initiatives.
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk presented Feng, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, with the award. Dr. Frenk also serves as a distinguished professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at UCLA Fielding.
“Nearly a year ago, when we learned that the federal government had suspended grant funding to UCLA, countless members of our community spoke up to defend our shared values and principles. This young man turned his words into action,” Frenk said of Feng, who is also a graduate student researcher at the UCLA Center for LGBTQ+ Advocacy, Research and Health.
Feng was honored for his role in mobilizing UCLA students to travel to Sacramento to meet with lawmakers about SB 895, the California Science and Health Research Bond Act, which proposed a $23 billion bond to fund scientific research across the state. As vice president of external affairs for the UCLA Graduate Students Association (GSA), Feng led a delegation of UCLA students on a trip to Washington, D.C., to discuss threats to federal research, loans and international student access.
“Jack, you are a fitting recipient of the President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership. I am proud to call you a Bruin,” Frenk said.
Feng, who has also advocated for immigrant and marginalized students in his GSA role, told UCLA Newsroom what the award meant.
“As an international student, a gay man and a first-generation college graduate raised in a working-class family in China, accepting the UC President’s Award at the Regents’ meeting was truly the honor of a lifetime,” he said. “It is difficult to put into words what this recognition means to me.”
He noted that the recognition reflects his family’s unwavering love and sacrifice, which made his own American dream possible; the trust and partnership of his fellow Bruins and UC student leaders; the mentorship of his doctoral advisor, Matthew Mimiaga; and the support and collaboration of UCLA and UC leadership.
“I am filled with gratitude, joy, pride, and humility to be recognized by the UCLA chancellor and UC president before the university’s highest governing body,” Feng said. “Even more meaningful is knowing that our students’ experiences, hopes and aspirations were represented and acknowledged in that room. To have the privilege of helping carry their stories forward is an honor I will never take for granted.”
Dr. Kari Nadeau, dean of the Fielding School, praised Feng’s determination and passion in a statement.
“UCLA Fielding doctoral candidate Jack Feng — and the work he has done to be recognized with the UC President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership — is a shining example of learning and leading with tremendous passion and care, and all that is possible when the drive to effect positive change is put into action,” she said.
“UCLA Fielding was founded to build health and equity, and Jack has demonstrated through his student leadership and dedication to service that he is a true public health changemaker,” Nadeau added.
