Angela Diaz, M.D., Ph.D, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, will be honored as Ambassador of Health at the Dominican Day Parade Gala on August 12 and at the New York City Dominican Day Parade on August 14, 2016.

The key theme for this year’s parade is “Honoring and Empowering the Dominican Woman.” For decades, Dominican women secured their place in history in both the U.S. and in the Dominican Republic, and their work transcends geography and culture. This year, in the name of those who paved the way, the Dominican Day Parade honors the untold stories of the everyday Dominican-American women hard at work in their respective fields.

Dr. Angela Diaz has led the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center for more than 25 years, overseeing its growth into the largest center of its kind in the United States. Dr. Diaz’s passion for adolescents, particularly those whose circumstances deprive them of the care they need, stems from her own experience as a young immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Indeed, she herself was once a patient of the center she now leads, and it was the compassion and care she received that put her on a path to her life’s work.  The Center serves more than 10,000 of New York City’s most vulnerable young people and is recognized as a leader in adolescent health.

Dr. Diaz earned her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1981. She completed post-doctoral training at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and also earned a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Columbia University. In 1989, Dr. Diaz was named the director of the very center that helped turn her life around when she was a teenager in distress.

The Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center is New York City’s largest provider of high-quality, comprehensive, free health and wellness services for young people, and the nation’s leading center of adolescent health care, training and research. For more information about our services, visit https://www.teenhealthcare.org.