2023 Outstanding Member of the Year Award Winner
Yen Ang, DrPH, MS, MPH, RD, FAND is a prominent nutrition leader whose footprints extend far beyond the nutrition field. As the Vice President of Health Equity at Tangelo—one of the biggest food-is-medicine platform companies in the nation, Yen leads the effort to construct equity and cultural diversity into the organizations’ policies and services, including the Medical-Tailored Meals. She plays a major role in the California CalAIM reformation to build social-determinant-of-health into health care to serve the Medicaid population.
Yen is an active member of the Academy. She served as the President of the Public Health Community Nutrition DPG (2020-2022); is the Policy Advocacy Leader for the AAPI-MIG (2023-2024); serves as a member on the Legislative Public Policy Council; co-chairs the Academy DGA affinity group and actively participates in the Health Equity Diversity affinity group. As the chair of the PHCN-DPG, she presented the well-received DPG session spotlight at FNCE 2021.
Over the years, Yen has earned multiple awards that attest to her enduring and impactful influence in the nutrition and public health fields: She was the recipient of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Excellence award 2022 by the HEN-DPG, and the prestigious Mary C Egan Award 2023 by the APHA (American Public Health Association) Her exceptional innovation that weaves nutrition science into public health services earned her consecutive wins of NACo (National Association of Counties) Achievement Awards in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Her leadership is recognized by the California state government: Dr.Yen was named Woman-of-the-Year of the 47th district by the state assembly majority leader Reyes in 2021 for her outstanding service to Californians during COVID; She is the California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon appointee at the FAS (Flexible Assistance for Survivors) advisory board 2023-2025 where she provides oversight to some $47 million state fund to crime survivors of communities of color.
Last but not least, Yen serves on the high-impact-high-stake CFAP Expansion advisory board to help the State implement the historic, first in the US, expansion of food benefits (SNAP) to Californians aged 55 or older regardless of immigration status. In the past 2 decades, Dr. Yen authored and published well over 70 original papers that center around transitional research projects in food-is-medicine and health promotion.
The purpose of the Outstanding Member of the Year Award is to recognize a member of the Public Health/Community Nutrition DPG who has exhibited outstanding service, leadership and accomplishment.
Previous Winners
2020 No award given
2019 No award given
2018
2017
2016 Marielle Counts, RD
2015 Joanne Kouba, PhD, RDN, LDN
2014 Kay Sisk, MS, RD, LD
2013 Leslye Rauth, MPH, RD, CDE, LMNT
2012 Josefine Wendel, MS, RD