Dr. Takesha Valentine Cooper: Leadership, Education and Love - Crafton Hills College

Publish Date: Jan. 10, 2024

Dr. Takesha Cooper

When she could not afford to attend her first choice of UCLA, Takesha Cooper began her higher education journey at Crafton Hills College. Cooper now realizes how fate worked in her favor, and beginning her higher education journey at Crafton was the absolute best choice. Cooper notes that being mentored by Mr. E (Computer Science Professor Jay Edwards), taking physics classes from Mr. Thurman, getting involved in student leadership through the Associated Students, becoming president of the campus’s Black Student Union, and meeting her future husband were a few of the highlights that have prompted her to become an advocate for community colleges.


After graduating from CHC in 1994, Cooper transferred to UC Santa Barbara, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She then went on to earn a master’s in those disciplines from UC Riverside. Next, Cooper earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and went on to do her residency in San Mateo County and a fellowship at Stanford University.


Cooper began her career working within the Riverside University Health System and Riverside County Department of Mental Health, where she oversaw regional psychiatric county clinics. She also worked as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and became a double board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. Cooper used her education, training, and experience to create her own private practice that served patients from a variety of diverse backgrounds.


Cooper’s accomplishments, however, do not end there. During her seven years at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, Cooper worked as a clinical associate and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and an associate training director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and served as vice chair of education, residency program director, chair of the admissions committee, and equity advisor.
In 2022, Cooper graduated from the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program offered through Drexel University and, in August of 2023, she was selected after a national search to be the Department Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and Chief of Behavioral Health at Renown Health.


Though it has been thirty years since she attended CHC, Cooper knows firsthand what an impact a place like CHC can have on a person’s life, saying: “The role that community colleges have on the lives of others is so important. I share this with my residents and medical students as well as high school students who worry that this path will lead to them appearing 'less than' and I reassure them with the stories of how wonderful my experience was.”


As Dr. Cooper begins her duties as Department Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and Chief of Behavioral Health at Renown Health, Crafton Hills College honors the work she has done, the impacts she has made, and her future contributions.