Lakshmi Reddi Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer | nmsu.edu
Lakshmi Reddi Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer | nmsu.edu
A New Mexico State University faculty member and a Ph.D. student are set to receive national awards at the 2025 Society for Public Health Education Conference in April.
Sarah Ruiz, an assistant professor of family and consumer sciences in the College of Agricultural, Environmental and Consumer Sciences, will be honored with the M. Elaine Auld Horizon Award. This award is given to early-career health educators who have shown leadership, creativity, and involvement in health education practice.
“Receiving the M. Elaine Auld Horizon Award is an incredible honor,” said Ruiz, who joined NMSU last fall. “It reaffirms my commitment to advancing public health through culturally relevant, evidence-based nutrition interventions. SOPHE has played such an important role in shaping the field of health education, and over time, I feel that I have found a happy home within this organization.”
Chineneye Onyeanwu, a Ph.D. student in public health sciences at the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation, will receive the Dr. Mary K. Beyrer Graduate Student Scholarship from the Foundation for Advancement of Health Education.
Onyeanwu is pursuing a Ph.D. in health equity science and hails from Nigeria. She began her career in nutrition and dietetics before earning a master’s degree in molecular biology on a special scholarship from University of Skovde in Sweden.
“Receiving this national award for health education promotion is both an honor and a responsibility for me,” Onyeanwu said. “It confirms the dedication and passion I have toward community empowerment in addressing health disparities. This recognition reinforces my resolve to make meaningful impact in health promotion and serves as motivation to continue advocating for equity in health care.”
Jagdish Khubchandani, professor of public health at NMSU, nominated both Ruiz and Onyeanwu for these honors.
“The double awards this year, and the consistent track record of NMSU faculty and students being honored at national avenues, tells us volumes about the health and human services related research and practice going on at NMSU,” Khubchandani said.
For more information about the SOPHE awards, visit https://www.sophe.org/news/sophe-announces-dr-sarah-ruiz-as-recipient-of-m-elaine-auld-horizon-award/.
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