PhD candidate Serena Xiong was awarded the 2021 student Outstanding Community Service Award by the University of Minnesota’s Office of Public Engagement. Xiong earned the award for her work as a graduate research assistant with the Robert J. Jones Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC) in Minneapolis from 2018 to 2020.

At UROC, Xiong was primarily responsible for spearheading and organizing the development of the center’s community-identified research agenda. This process involved coordinating a year-long series of focus groups and community and University feedback sessions that helped frame UROC’s research priorities for the next three years.

“As a community-engaged scholar, I strongly believe that knowledge should be equally valued wherever it originates from — be it from the community or within academia,” says Xiong. 

UROC is one of the University’s flagships for facilitating urban community-University partnerships and research. Xiong worked with UROC’s Executive Director Makeda Zulu-Gillespie and former Director of Research Lauren Martin to implement a series of workgroups with faculty, students, and community members to learn about their available resources and needs to inform new research priorities for the center. 

“After compiling and synthesizing the results of these listening sessions, I made sure to go back to the original source of where these research priorities surfaced to ensure that what I captured was indeed valid and representative of these communities,” says Xiong. “Through intense member-checking processes, I was able to incorporate and infuse community-driven language and values into the new research agenda. For example, we called out the need to dismantle discriminatory systems and systemic racism as a new research priority.” 

Xiong says that safeguarding this process to be as transparent and community-centered as possible further strengthened the Twin Cities community’s relationship with the University. 

“As we begin to address the recently declared public health crisis of racism, it is important that we provide solutions and strategies that are collective, concerted, and community-driven,” says Xiong. “My role in spearheading and developing UROC’s research agenda has laid an important foundation and precedent for facilitating mutually respectful and empowering university-community partnerships to advance health equity.”   

Xiong is a doctoral candidate in the epidemiology program and advised by Associate Professor DeAnn Lazovich.