Critical Voices in DEIB

Moderator | Tiffany Melendez

Tiffany Melendez is the Director of Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging and Justice for University Health Services at UC Berkeley. 

Tiffany Melendez joined UHS in 2018 as a Health Educator with the Health Promotion team. During her time as a Health Educator, Tiffany's work started to shift and she transitioned into helping lead UHS DEIBJ efforts. The initial work was focused on data collection and assessment and creating a greater sense of belonging for all at UHS. For two years, she focused her efforts on well-being events, anti-racism training, community building, and identifying goals and metrics. She also led or participated in a variety of DEIBJ committees both at UHS and within the Division of Student Affairs. Tiffany has a B.A. in Psychology from Hofstra University and an M.S. in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University. She is also a spiritual practitioner and teaches clairvoyant meditation tools and techniques. One of her favorite quotes is: The best way to solve any problem is to remove its cause. - Martin Luther King Jr. 

Dr. Jelani Cobb

Dr. Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019. He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race, and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. He is producer and co-producer on a number of documentaries including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union and Policing the Police. Dr. Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School in Queens, NY, Howard University, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Rutgers University, where he completed his MA and doctorate in American History in 2003. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2023.

Dr. Mikael Villalobos

Dr. Villalobos serves as Associate Vice Chancellor for the Office of Campus and Community Relations at UC Davis. In this role, Dr. Villalobos leads important and long-standing campus-wide climate and inclusion initiatives, namely, the UC Davis’ Diversity and Inclusion Education and Training program and the Campus Community Book Project (CCBP). These two diversity and inclusion hallmark programs are recognized across the UC system for their robustness and scope, reaching faculty, students, and staff at both ends of the Causeway, and extending to the communities beyond UC Davis and UC Davis Health. In 2016, the Chancellor recognized Mikael’s leadership in the success of these programs with the Chancellor’s Staff Appreciation and Recognition (STAR) Award. Mikael also has oversight responsibilities of the UC Davis Police Accountability Board (PAB), another model program systemwide and nationally. Among other campus-wide inclusion initiatives that Mikael has led are the implementation of the Preferred Names Project and the institutionalization of the Anti-Bullying Training Program, another example of campus best practice embedded within the professional development of faculty and staff.