28/05/2025
Better late than never! Please join us in congratulating Heran Kidane, Tess Matsukawa, Danafe Matusalem, and Karen Sanchez as our March 2025 APAC Advisers of the Month!
Heran, Tess, Danafe, and Karen are the advising team for the Public Health Global Health (PH-GH) major at UW Seattle. Their nominator had this to say: "While the Academic Services Director was on parental leave for 6 months, the PH-GH Advisers managed advising a 300 student cohort through a new curriculum that involved intensive enrollment management to ensure all students had the opportunity to complete their major requirements within a 2 year time frame. They implemented new communication strategies during a very full time to reach both incoming major students and the students matriculated into the outgoing curriculum. We've heard so much praise from how well the advising team did during this time frame and have had a smooth transition into the winter quarter!"
We are so happy to be able to recognize the PH-GH Advising Team! Please see below to learn more about them.
Questions:
• Adviser or advisor?
• How long have you been on campus?
• What are some exciting projects you just completed or are currently working on?
• What is the best advice you have ever been given (work or personal)?
• What is your favorite thing about UW?
• What do you enjoy doing when you are not on campus/working?
• Where is your favorite place to eat around campus?
• Most recent favorite book, show, movie, or podcast?
- HERAN -
• ~technically~ advisor
• On campus for 3.5 years!
• Best advice: Why stand when you can sit? Why sit when you can lay down?
• Fave UW thing: The trees, soooooo many beautiful wonderful trees!
• I love to practice and teach yoga!
• Saigon Deli - chicken banh mi with egg, yummmm
• Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- TESS -
• advisor
• On campus for 5.5 years
• Fave UW thing: I love the different gardens on campus. I enjoy going on walks through them during my lunch.
• I enjoy making art with my friends, spending time with my cat, and biking
• Xi’an Noodles
• Right now, my favorite show is Severance
- DANAFE -
• Adviser – I like that this spelling of the word has “advise” in it which is what we do in this profession.
• On campus for 11 years! I have been on campus since I was an undergraduate student. It is meaningful (and sometimes still surprising) to me that I have the opportunity to continue to grow as an alum and professional at the same university and major that I graduated from.
• Exciting project: embedding professional development content into the new PH-GH curriculum. With my training as a Certified Dependable Strengths Facilitator that I received in Aut24, I lead the creation and facilitation of four Dependable Strengths Workshop Class Sessions for the new SPH 391: Public Health Service Learning I course in the PH-GH Purple Curriculum with homework assignments and class activities in Win25. I also collaborate on the Dependable Strengths Workshop Class Sessions for SPH 396: Intensive Public Health Service Learning and career development sessions such as interviewing and cover letters in SPH 392: Public Health Service Learning II for Spr25.
• Best advice: Go where your light can shine the brightest and be embraced; find your chosen family.
Always be gracious, compassionate, and kind to yourself. You are worthy and enough to receive the same kindness, care, and time that you give to others. Be the person you wish you had when you were younger for yourself now.
Rest is essential. Take the break, use the sick time, take vacation time (even if you are not going to a “vacation spot”), take a nap, go to sleep, etc..
You are on your own path and timeline. It is hard to stop, but you really do not need to compare yourself with others.
Your voice matters and is unique to you. Don’t diminish it even if others judge it harshly or don’t listen.
• Spending time with my family and friends, reading, writing, watching shows/movies/videos, going on boba dates, and karaoke!
• On the Ave: Little Thai, Sizzle & Crunch, Korean Tofu House
At UVillage: Hokkaido Ramen Santouka, Mr. West, Frankie & Jo’s
• Show: Abbott Elementary - I binged it last month and am caught up now! Books (Listed by genre):
Contemporary Romance: The Kiss Quotient Series by Helen Hoang and Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert – The next book on my TBR (To Be Read) List is the second book in the Brown Sisters Series!
Memoir: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Self-Help: Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans by Jenny Wang, PhD.
- KAREN -
• I have to go with adviser :-)
• As an adviser, over 3 years but I also went to UW as an undergrad, so technically 6 years on campus.
• Our application to the major recently closed so we are in the midst of reviewing applications for Autumn entry!
• Best advice: Don’t compare yourself to where others are because everyone is on their own timeline and journey. As someone who transferred to the UW during undergrad and graduated during the pandemic, I have found comfort and strength in this whenever I struggle with imposter syndrome.
• I have been taking online courses at my community college over the past year and look forward to picking that back up in the summer after this quarter. I’ve also been trying to learn a new instrument and am in the process of learning to play the violin!
• Can’t go wrong with Saigon Deli (love their tofu banh mi!), Molly Moon’s in U-Village, and if you’re open to going a little further off campus, Seattle Samosa and Zary Bakery on 65th (it’s a few short blocks off of the 372 bus route).
• When commuting to work, I listen to a lot of podcasts with some of my go-to’s being: Radio Lab, Invisibilia, Ologies, On the Media, and Code Switch.