Menaka Mohan

Office: 919-966-0278
Fax: 919-843-3083
mmohan@email.unc.edu  

Bio

Menaka Mohan is a graduate assistant at Active Living By Design (ALBD). She provides support to the Healthy Kids Healthy Communities (HKHC) grant-making process, and has also assisted in the creation of two resource guides to help HKHC grantees create changes to the built environment that can lead to healthy eating and active living.

Menaka brings experience in working with vulnerable populations in urban and international settings, having worked previously for an environmental organization in Dharwad, India, and in the South Bronx community. "I believe that everyone should have the right to live, work and play in a health environment," she says, "it shouldn't be a privilege." She is especially interested in ALBD's commitment to working with diverse stakeholders in order to address community health issues.

In previous work as the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance and Active Living by Design Coordinator, Menaka organized everything from walking clubs and social marketing campaigns to coalition-based political advocacy and land use planning strategies related to a proposed highway decommissioning and a new greenway system in the South Bronx. Before that, she worked as the Communications Assistant for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, writing for a weekly publication and assisting in press releases and advocacy campaigns.

Menaka earned a B.A. in environmental policy and analysis at Boston University, with a minor in economics. She is currently pursuing a dual masters' degree in health behavior and health education and city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

Outside of the office, she loves to spend time with her friends and families. Menaka loves running, biking and traveling. Before moving to Chapel Hill, she spent seven months in India learning to cook her mother's recipes.

Active Living / Healthy Eating Story

I had recently moved into my second apartment in Brooklyn and my roommate had convinced me that it was time to get a bike. I was terrified - biking in New York City? - I don't think so! I didn't even remember how to ride a bike, or so I thought. A couple weeks later, she took me on a test ride at Prospect Park, and soon after I was hooked. I began commuting to my midtown Manhattan job twice each week. I loved the control it provided for my commute time - I didn't have to wait for the train - and I could fit in a decent workout! My love of bike commuting has continued now that I live in Chapel Hill. I regularly bike to class and love exploring the picturesque countryside on longer rides.

I was lucky to grow up with very healthy food as a child, although I didn't always appreciate it! I remember wanting nothing more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch instead of the Indian meal that my parents packed for me. Now, however, I am so thankful for the eating habits that my childhood food culture instilled in me. My time in India also taught me to appreciate seasonally grown produce. The variety of produce found year-round in U.S. grocery stores makes it hard to remember that fruits and vegetables can only be harvested at certain times. In India, I could only buy what was available at the market. When I arrived in September, I kept asking my aunt when we would have mangos. She simply said, "It's not mango season, if you had one now it wouldn't taste good!" She was right; the mangos did taste awful in September. The ones I had in July were the best mangos I've ever tasted, and were well worth the wait.