A conversation with Contract and Grant Writer, Analyst Tracey Tuyen.
Q: What do you really do at CLS?
A: I like to say, "Show me the money!" My work includes finding funding to support sustainability initiatives for operational projects. On a day-to-day basis, I could be doing research on funders and grant opportunities, reaching out to CLS and other relevant departments to see if they're interested, and if they are, then talking through with them to see whether there's a viable project, whether we're eligible, etc. If we establish that we are eligible and competitive, I work with them on the grant application from project design and budgeting to drafting on through to submission. If and when we get the award, I help them with post-award project management, which includes back end documentation and other work like technical and financial reporting.
Q: How long have you worked at UCSF?
A: At the end of January, it'll be 8 months.
Q: What advice would you give to someone just starting out at UCSF?
A: That's a good question. UCSF is a great place to work because it feels like a vibrant city unto itself. There's this sense of identity within the University that we're part of a community that's doing a lot of good. It's also very complex. Coming in, I was very enthralled by the energy of the place and our colleagues. It was a little eye-opening in terms of 'Wow! So many different departments! So many different people who work on very specific things!' To work through and understand how the University works takes time, so give yourself time. That would be my best advice for someone just starting at UCSF.
Q: What did you do before coming to UCSF or CLS, specifically?
A: Before UCSF, my career was in international development. My function was similar in that I worked both in pre-award processes (e.g., project design and proposal writing) and post-award processes (e.g., grant management). My technical function hasn't changed much. But the field and sectors then were very different from my current role at UCSF focusing on sustainability. The field of international development involves working in/with developing countries and is a very different realm. The sectoral areas I worked in were also quite different, such as democracy and governance, human rights, women's empowerment, environmental protection, health, refugee assistance, and humanitarian aid, among others — broader international and regional development issues.
So, I've come from international nonprofits and frequently working abroad to being more focused on the Bay Area and being specifically focused on sustainability at UCSF. But my new role is exciting since the content area is something new that I'm learning, and I love learning new things. I also love the fact that I can bring to the table my technical skills from the past 20 years working in my previous field but applying them to a different sector and setting.
Q: Is there a particular grant project you've worked on at UCSF that you are particularly proud of?
A: The one that is foremost on my mind, and that I'm particularly proud of, is trying to get electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at Oyster Point. Hopefully, once we get through the contract stage, that will happen. I'm excited about it not just because of the dollar amount of the grant funding, but also because the in-kind resources that the funder would be providing could be significant. I am also particularly excited about this potential grant because it will help to further our electrification efforts across the University. If we're able to get through this contract, then it sets up a good precedent for other departments across the University to also electrify their fleets and to get support in doing so.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: Right here in the Bay Area in Oakland. I lived in San Francisco for 10 years though.
Q: I know you mentioned doing work for organizations abroad for international development. Did you ever live abroad while you were doing that?
I worked predominantly at headquarters offices. For the 10 years that I was in San Francisco, I worked for an international organization that was focused on Asia. For the first five to seven years with that organization, I spent 50% of my time in Asia on proposal-writing deployments mainly for multi-million-dollar proposals that required me to be on the ground working closely with program staff in the organization’s country offices. So, I spent a lot of time eating very good food and working on proposals in Asia.
Personally, I lived abroad for two separate years in China, once while I was an undergraduate and again when I was in graduate school. I also spent four months living in Vietnam as part of my undergraduate study abroad program. Prior to that, I spent a year living in France when I was in high school.
Since I love to travel, while I worked with international development organizations, I took advantage of my work assignments abroad to add on site trips after project completion to travel around to other places.
Q: Did you know, when you were in school that this was what you wanted to pursue? How did you end up in this field?
A: When I was an undergraduate, I was a triple major at UCLA. I did International Development Studies, East Asian Studies, and Psychology. I followed that by doing International Development and Asian Studies in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). So that's kind of what prompted me to work for international development organizations that focused on Asia. I started off working in programs in Washington, DC after graduate school for a public health international development organization. When I decided to move back to California, the opportunity that I found was still in international development and with a focus on Asia, but centered on public sector fundraising through proposal writing. I decided to go for it because even though it wasn’t direct program management work, it was related and supported program work in that it provided funding to get projects up and running.
Health is one of my career loves that I haven't worked on as much. One of the reasons why I was very excited to start working at UCSF is that it allowed me to go back to the health side as I used to do internal management consulting work with Kaiser Permanente. It's nice to be back within a health environment where, even though I don't work directly on health, there are things that happen at UCSF that really resonate with me, for example, when Chancellor Hawgood talks about a new hospital or other health or research facility being built or at the monthly staff town halls where Dr. Peter Chin-Hong talks about 'Health News You Can Use'.
Q: What do you do for yourself when you're not working, or what are your hobbies?
A: Well, I'd have to say that I had a lot more hobbies before I had my daughter! She is almost two and a half years old, so she takes up all my time outside of work. My hobbies pre-baby were traveling and eating since I'm a big foodie who loves trying all kinds of cuisines. If I had to summarize, really, it's traveling, eating, and finding new experiences. I love novelty.
Q: Is there something new you stumbled upon recently that you really enjoyed?
Being the mom of a little tot, I would say it's seeing the world through my daughter's eyes. She recently experienced the snow for the first time, and it was great watching her. She's a very boisterous girl, not shy at all, and she is usually bouncing off the walls, but when I first put her in the snow, I could just see her taking everything in in utter wonder. She was just looking around and was very quiet and still for a while, where her facial expression was like, 'What is this stuff? What's going on?' But then she got very excited about it and started running around in the powdery stuff. It reminded me of the innocence of childhood when simple things are so delightful, something that, as busy adults going about “adulting,” we may not experience as much anymore. It was really lovely to relive my first snow experience again through her eyes.