Matthew Pena, BA

Matthew is currently a second year in the Master’s Entry Clinical Nurse (MECN) program in the School of Nursing at UCLA. He completed his B.A. in Public Health Policy at UC Irvine in 2020. Matthew’s interests in Maternal and Child Health grew in the various roles and leadership positions he held throughout his undergraduate and graduate careers, including serving as a Childlife volunteer at CHOC Children’s Hospital, conducting research on non-pharmaceutical pain management of children in the peri-operative phase at CHOC, and his role as a Medical Assistant within a pediatric otolaryngology outpatient clinic. His current research with Drs. Anthony Tolentino and Kristen Choi within the UCLA School of Nursing analyze Filipino-Americans and their management of type 2 diabetes, as well as the impact of adverse childhood experiences on children with autism, respectively. Matthew hopes to merge his passions for maternal and child health, public health and research in his future career. Matthew’s current goal is to obtain a new graduate RN position as a pediatric nurse upon graduation from the MECN program. In his free time, he loves to take dance classes and discover new coffee/matcha shops all around LA!