Michelle Popowitz Email & Phone Number

I am driven to make my mark and leave things better than how I found them. As current and former colleagues will share, I invest time and care into the organizations for which I work and in those around me.I am at my best when building new programs and initiatives, solving problems, coaching others who are responsive and finding the win-win in a situation.I have worked at UCLA since 2001, first in the School of Dentistry (2001-2010) and more recently in the Research & Creative Activities organization (since 2011). Prior to coming to UCLA, I worked in hospital administration and in law firms.I built a number of programs while in the Research organization and the program of which I am most proud is my co-founding of UCLA Grand Challenges (https://grandchallenges.ucla.edu/); through this program, UCLA was the first university to commit to solve a specific societal grand challenge. Our approach represented a paradigm shift in university research. We began our initiative in an exploratory phase in 2012 and in 2013, I started to informally advise other campuses who were considering launching their own Grand Challenge programs, something I continue to do to this day. I have shared UCLA's experiences and lessons learned with approximately 40 organizations, not counting the reach of presentations at conferences and the 12,000+ downloads of the Report on University-Led Grand Challenges (available at http://bit.ly/Report-Univ-LedGCs2018) co-authored with @CristinDorgelo. In 2020, I decided to move from the central campus role to focus full-time on the Depression Grand Challenge. Since then, the Depression Grand Challenge has transitioned from start-up to early stage; much of our transition and growth occurred while we operated remotely. I'm so proud of what we are achieving and I'm grateful for UCLA taking the risk and providing the environment and support to make this a possibility.

Listed skills include Community Outreach, Public Speaking, Nonprofits, Grant Writing, and 6 others.