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Dominican’s emphasis on community engagement not only instills in students a commitment to advocacy, but also shapes careers. 

Sizi Rios ’25 embodies all that is amazing about Dominican. Her journey – from grassroots community outreach to meaningful policy work – shows how personal experiences and a supportive campus community can lead to meaningful change. 

Sizi recently traveled to Sacramento as part of a delegation from the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank to advocate for services that help low-income families afford healthy and nutritious food. Sizi met with lawmakers to discuss policy she helped craft as part of her 18-month appointment to the food bank’s food policy advocacy coalition. 

Sizi’s connection to food insecurity isn’t just theoretical—she’s lived it. This personal experience makes her advocacy even more impactful. 

“The food policy coalition is composed of community members who have experienced food insecurity or who have been a part of the CalFresh program,” Sizi says. “I identify as that person, as my family has used this service. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank offers a seat at the table to community members. It’s such a great chance to voice options and be involved with something that I know impacts my community.”

Advocate is not a role Sizi was expecting when she enrolled at Dominican. 

Sizi grew up in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood and graduated from nearby San Rafael High School. She first visited Dominican as a middle school student while attending a summer program for gifted and talented youth. That early interaction left a lasting memory. 

“Dominican is beautiful and peaceful, and I enjoyed being on the campus. I hoped that one day I could attend Dominican as a student.”

By the time Sizi was in high school, attending college close to home to help her father care for her brothers, now aged 14 and 12, was a priority. A generous financial aid package made a Dominican education possible.

“I know as a first-generation student that it is hard to go away from home,” Sizi says. “You do have more responsibilities than others, so when Dominican offered me a financial package I did not even have to think twice because of the proximity of the school and because of what I had heard about the faculty at Dominican and the one-on-one attention I would receive. It became possible for me to become a college student while also balancing my responsibilities at home.”

Sizi was drawn to public health coursework her first year at Dominican. She had initially considered a pre-med track but, after shadowing physicians, did not enjoy the one-on-one aspect of their work. 

“I discovered public health in the university catalogue and, reading about the classes, felt that it was everything I was wanting to do. Public health is more population based – focusing on community health rather than individual interventions, and that really sounded like a good fit.”

Sizi added a minor in Community Action and Social Change (CASC) after enrolling in a Service-Learning course and working with San Rafael immigrant advocacy organization Canal Alliance on a public awareness program to convince residents to get their booster vaccines.

“The Canal is my community. It is where I grew up and where I still live. I did a lot of work there calling people to remind them of their vaccine appointments and showing them how to schedule the appointments. I liked working with people from my community, and I felt that this was something I wanted to continue doing.”

Sizi continued to work with other community-based organizations on health-related outreach, gaining important career-building skills. She worked as a harm reduction assistant with the Sphar Center and as a Spanish language interpreter at RotaCare. 

The outreach work shifted to policy work when Sizi enrolled in Dr. Patti Culross’ health policy class. Like many colleagues at Dominican, Dr. Culross takes the time to guide students based on their strengths and interests. This support helped Sizi fine-tune her professional goals.

“Dr. Patti is very knowledgeable, and she has so many different resources for different pathways her students are interested in,” Sizi says. “She knows us – knows us well – and knows exactly what to suggest for each one of us. She really does care about me as a whole person.”

Last year, working as a research assistant at the Center for Domestic Peace, Sizi drew on skills she learned in her public health classes as she conducted data collection, analysis, and literature reviews.

Knowing that Sizi is planning to apply to graduate school and eventually pursue a leadership position in healthcare, Dr. Culross encouraged Sizi to apply for the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank internship. Sizi had read about the position in a newsletter published by Dominican’s Office of Student Life. 

“Dr. Patti knows me and understands me as a person. She’s always listening to the goals that her students have and then talking about what’s happening in the real world and what we should do and expect as we get closer to graduation.”

While Sizi plans to remain close to home during and after graduate school, she values the perspectives she gained while visiting Bali through Dr. Rosemary Michael’s “Explorations in Equity” course. There, Sizi was struck by the similarities in health advocacy between her work in California and that of the Indonesian NGOs the group visited within Bali. 

“Visiting Bali really opened my perspective. It also made me feel close to home – to see that there were organizations caring for their own communities and doing important work all over the globe. It made me even more excited about continuing my own work in my community.”