UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Dr. Julie Elginer recognized by university for civic engagement

A UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor and alumni has been honored by the university’s alumni association for her service in civic positions at the state and local levels.

Dr. Julie Elginer, associate professor in UCLA Fielding’s Department of Health Policy and Management and a UCLA alumni (Dr.PH, ’11) has served in leadership positions with the City of Calabasas (CA) and California state boards responsible for oversight of health sciences professionals in the state.

“When I sit at the dais, my decisions are guided by my commitment to increasing accessibility, environmental preservation, and consumer protection,” Elginer said, after accepting the 2025 Bruin Excellence in Civic Engagement at a reception on the UCLA campus. “This is public health in action.”

Since obtaining her doctorate from UCLA, Elginer has served in four civic leadership roles at the state and local levels. From 2012 to 2017, she was a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Chiropractic Examiners, providing regulatory oversight for the 13,000 licensees in California. In 2024, she was appointed to the Board of Dental Hygienists, providing consumer protection and oversight of the 22,000 licensed professionals in the state.

At the local level, she spent five years on the City of Calabasas Environmental Commission, having served as chair and vice chair. In 2022, she earned the Carl Gibbs Environmental Award from the City of Calabasas for her decades of conservation and educational efforts. In 2021, Elginer was appointed to the Calabasas Parks, Recreation and Education Commission and currently serves as its chair.

“My UCLA doctoral degree is a Dr.PH, which is centered on high-level practice, policy making, and impact for public health practitioners,” said Elginer, who holds an MBA from the University of Maryland and a BA in accounting from Carthage College in Wisconsin. “Serving in an appointed role at the municipal level allows me to advise the city council on myriad issues facing our environment, the use of our park system, and educational programming across the life span, (while) serving at the state level has a direct public health impact through promulgating regulations, working in partnership with the Department of Justice on proposed decisions for disciplinary proceedings of licensees, fiscal oversight, and more.”

To be eligible for this honor, nominees must be a UCLA degree holder or UCLA certificate holder and not currently serve as an elected official. Nominees are evaluated independently, and the 2025 class run the gamut of education and professions, in the public and private sectors, and including service at the United Nations, U.S. state and local governments, the U.S. military, philanthropy, and healthcare, organizers said.

Along with Elginer, UCLA Fielding alum Berenice Nunez Constant (M.P.H. ’10), was also honored; Nunez Constant currently serves as senior vice president of AltaMed Health Services in Los Angeles, where she leads innovative large scale civic engagement campaigns to mobilize high-need, low-propensity voting populations by using community health centers as hubs for community engagement.

Those sorts of engagements, often as volunteers, is exactly the type of commitment the awards are designed to highlight, said Natalie Samarjian, UCLA alumni board member and the president and CEO of Coro California, the non-profit leadership training foundation, who gave the keynote at the awards event.

“In a time when institutions are under stress, public life often feels polarized, and civic norms are tested, the work of bridging difference, restoring trust, and acting with moral clarity is more urgent than ever,” Samarjian said. “The Bruins we honor tonight are doing precisely that - acting not from ego or spotlight, but from service, grounded in values, committed to making systems better.”