Tufts School of Medicine Recipients of the 2021 Presidential Awards for Civic Life

The Presidential Award for Civic Life is the highest recognition for service, leadership, and civic engagement conferred by Tufts University. For over 20 years, the award has been given to inspiring undergraduate and graduate students, and this year, deserving faculty members also were recognized for important contributions to civic life. This year’s winners include four students from Tufts School of Medicine.

Elyssa Anneser, MPH'21

As a double Jumbo, Elyssa has been an environmental leader on campus for the entirety of her undergraduate and graduate education at Tufts, combining her love of environment, justice, civic action, and policy. As an undergraduate in the School of Arts & Sciences, Elyssa served as an Eco-Rep through the Office of Sustainability, where she focused on environmental justice and on the historical role racism has played in exacerbating environmental hazards and sacrifice zones. She educated thousands of her peers through her on campus work and educational blog posts, eventually becoming the leader of the Eco-Rep program. Elyssa continued this work through internships with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice and as a climate policy fellow with the Boston City Council where she helped develop a climate policy plan to tackle local challenges. In her master’s program, Elyssa has been dedicated to antiracist work, even creating an antiracist book club for her research group and drafting a grant proposal to scale the program across the entire University. While at TUSM, she continued that work through her involvement in the Student Senate, the Academic Affairs Committee, the Diversity, Equity and Antiracism Council, and One Health. Elyssa’s studies and extracurricular activities have been devoted to addressing environmental inequalities as they pertain to civic engagement and COVID-19. And, she did it all despite considerable personal and professional challenges.

Jonathan de Guzman, M21

While at TUSM, Jonathan served as student leader of KICKS! or Kids in Care at Floating Hospital, a one-to-one friendship match program between TUSM student allies and children in chemotherapy or with blood disorders at Tufts Medical Center. Starting out as a KICKS! sidekick assigned to two patients, Jonathan's vision for the program went beyond one-to-one matches: despite having few group events in the past, KICKS! would host a prom for the kids in the program. To fund his idea, Jonathan organized several large-scale fundraisers, utilizing donations from and collaborations with local businesses. The end result was a fantastic prom event that even included the families of participating children. Jonathan’s enthusiasm for and commitment to KICKS! was also instrumental in expanding the program to Maine via a pilot program with the Maine Children’s Cancer Program, a collaboration he established during his Maine rotation.

Elizabeth De Jesus, M21

Elizabeth has been a champion of diversity, peer mentorship and antiracist work throughout her time at TUSM. An active member of the Multicultural Fellows Council (MFC), she served as a resource for support and mentorship to prospective candidates as a TUSM Ambassador. Elizabeth then went on to organize a workshop for rising third-year students about navigating bias in clinical settings with a focus on microaggressions, all while providing opportunities for support, discussion, and training. She was a student member of the Appropriate Treatment in Medicine Committee, the Equity and Inclusion Workstream Committee, the TUSM Admissions Committee, the Student Wellness Advising Committee, and the Antiracism Task Force. In addition to her considerable work at Tufts, Elizabeth founded the Sisterhood of Traveling Mentors, an organization that provides a mentorship program for the Philadelphia High School for Girls, a public high school in a historically underserved community, to connect current students with alumni, fill mentorship gaps and encourage pursuit of higher education and STEM fields.

LeAnn Louis, M21

LeAnn’s commitment to health justice shines through her work as a volunteer, researcher, leader and advocate. That commitment brought her to the Sharewood Project, where she helped underserved communities, particularly women of color, navigate the healthcare system as a Sexual and Reproductive Health Counselor and Haitian Creole interpreter. She continued this work as a Tisch Summer Fellow with the Lynn Community Health Center, where she treated pregnant and parenting women with Substance Use Disorder and helped them enroll in an opioid treatment program. LeAnn’s research on the impact of the treatment program helped it win a $500,000 grant for program expansion. Her interest in maternal health and racial justice also led to LeAnn’s involvement planning the first and second annual Black Mamas Matter conference at Tufts, which successfully highlighted the voices of Black mothers and brought awareness to poor health outcomes for Black mothers and children. Building on this focus, LeAnn also served as patient support for socially complex pregnant patients at Tufts as well as on the Massachusetts Medical Society's Committee on Maternal and Perinatal Health, the TUSM Antiracism Task Force, the Appropriate Treatment of Medicine Committee, and the Race Curriculum Task Force.

Read more about Tufts 2021 Presidential Awards for Civic Life recipients