Mary Lou de Leon Siantz is nationally recognized for her interdisciplinary efforts to prepare health and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals in leadership and policy, as well as internationally respected for her research in migrant population health.

As a professor at the School of Nursing, de Leon Siantz teaches, conducts research and mentors students in leadership policy and population health. Her research has focused on the impact of migration on the health and development of Hispanic migrant and immigrant children and families. Her current research, funded by the Binational Health Initiatives of the Americas, UC Berkeley, explores migration and the mental and reproductive health of rural Mexican migrant adolescent girls in California’s Central Valley and Jalisco, Mexico. Sponsored by the UC Davis Feminist Research Institute, she also investigates the impact of climate change on the health of Mexican farmworker women and their families.