Awards
- Thomas Ehrlich Award for Excellence in Service Learning (2021)
- Fulbright Award (2021)
Fulbright US Scholar
Iceland
Description of the video:
Priscilla Barnes is an Associate Professor of Applied Health Science at IU Bloomington. She is the winner of the Thomas Ehrlich Service Learning Award. Service learning. It's amazing, but it's challenging because you end up finding that things don't happen in a linear fashion. That you really do have to show up and be available and be ready to tackle complex problems and not worry about having the solution for everything. There's all kinds of organizations around us beyond the sample gates that are looking to partner with us as well. I think it starts, they're just looking at our curriculum, seeing what organization, what skills, what competencies we're teaching our students, and then figuring out what organization to partner with. I think Priscilla really exemplifies what this award is meant to recognize that she is a community-based researcher. Everything she does in her classroom and her research really permeate the idea of getting communities, students working together on extraordinary projects that make their communities better than public health. We are community. And so I, I think service learning provides a perfect balance for students to learn theoretical concepts, but then connected to practical applications in the community. Every experience I had with Dr. Barnes is amazing. She is constantly wanting to do more and be more for as Dr. Barnes is using her students and interns to help figure out the pieces we need. I send them information and then they tweak it and they go broader. They look at the state level and other county's see a number of students that are really trying to figure out what their skills, talents, and abilities our service learning provides that opportunity for them to figure it out while they have a coach, a mentor, surrounded by a number of people in the community that care about normally their academic success, but their personal success. When you see Dr. Barnes engaging with students, when you see her in the community, you can tell how passionate she has about the work that she does. She just lights up when she knows that the work that she's doing is really making a difference. I would like to thank my family and friends for keeping me grounded in this type of work. The IU School of Public Health and I use intrapreneurial engagement. And most importantly, my students and community partners who made this possible.About Priscilla Barnes
Priscilla Barnes, Ph.D.
Associate professor of applied health science, Priscilla Barnes earned a B.S. in biology and M.P.H. in community health education from IU Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary health sciences from Western Michigan University. Barnes returned to IU Bloomington as a postdoctoral fellow in 2010 becoming an assistant professor in 2012, and associate professor in 2019. Since 2017, Barnes has served as a faculty affiliate member for the Diabetes Translation Research Center at IUPUI, and since 2019 as a faculty affiliate member for the Center for Rural Engagement at IU Bloomington.
Barnes' career exemplifies a commitment to public health having served as a public health prevention specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a program director for the Minority Health Partnership/Calhoun County Health Department, a program manager for the National Association of County and City Health Officials, and a health education program manager at Elmendorf Air Force Base/Spectrum Healthcare Resources, Anchorage, AK. Barnes is a leader in community engagement. As a faculty affiliate for the Center for Rural Engagement she has worked directly with communities throughout southern Indiana to develop Community Health Improvement Programs. She has championed empowerment of local community leaders to collect data and create plans that will positively impact community health. Barnes has engaged her students in this work providing students with hand on experience in evaluation and development of community health programs. In addition to her work in southern Indiana, Barnes developed an international educational tour for Public Health students in Reykjavik, Iceland where students learn about administrative and policy directives that influence the country's health.
Barnes has regularly received external research funding from organizations like the NIH, NIA, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Indiana Minority Health Coalition. She is a 2021 Fulbright Scholar and has authored or co-authored over twenty peer-reviewed articles. Barnes has served on the leadership team for IU's Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) and has served as chair of the Committee of Community Engagement and Workforce Development in the IUB School of Public Health. Barnes received the 2021 Thomas Ehrlich Service Learning (now called the Indiana University Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award).