Before starting at Rollins, I spent a lot of time thinking about brains. I completed my undergrad degrees in neuroscience and urban studies, and I worked in a biomedical psychiatry lab for a couple years after graduating. Mental health is important to me for a variety of personal and professional reasons, but as I started graduate school, I had an itch to venture out into new topic areas. Initially, I felt rather overwhelmed at the breadth of opportunities available at Rollins, and I applied to internships and research positions rather haphazardly. Over time, I realized I wanted to use my time at graduate school to learn more about sexual and reproductive health.
During my first year at Rollins, I worked for the Rwanda-Zambia Health Research Group on projects spanning from COVID and Flu surveillance in Zambia to an implementation science clinical trial for IUDs in Rwanda. This group was incredibly welcoming and supportive of me as I worked to build up my understanding in this new-to-me area –intellectually, methodologically, and geographically. Much of my work revolved around data cleaning and management, and I was also able to contribute to data quality work for the clinical trial.
In the summer after my first year, I completed my APE with a global pharmaceutical company, working on HIV projects that focused on social determinants of health and quality of life for people living with HIV. This position pushed me to expand my understanding of the roles of academia and industry in public health. I worked with a very inspiring and diverse group of people who were passionate about what they do and very encouraging of myself and my fellow interns. In this role, I was able to work on quantitative and qualitative data analysis; stakeholder development; study design; and program evaluation. While my position was not explicitly epi-oriented, I was still able to complete epi tasks and to cultivate further the soft skills that help epi projects succeed.
Now, in the second year of my MPH and with several new experiences on my resume, I am analyzing data for a CDC project conducting HIV-related population surveying in Uganda. I am quite grateful to the broader professional community at Rollins for enthusiastically supporting students as they explore new areas, and I honestly a bit shocked whenever I reflect on all the skills the Epi program helped me develop in such a short time. As for next steps after graduating, I’m not sure if I’ll continue in the area of sexual and reproductive health, go back to mental health, or work my way into another new topic area – but I feel confident I have translatable skills and am equipped to contribute meaningfully as a public health professional thanks to my time at Rollins.
Rollins Student Ambassadors 