The Practicum Rundown
The HPM Practicum
The purpose of the practicum is to provide students with an opportunity to use and expand their academic knowledge and skills in a field setting. The practicum enables students to clarify career goals by providing a transition from theory to practice.
Featured Practica, Summer 2019
HPM is excited to highlight two MPH students who are completing their summer practica with members of the Columbia Startup Lab (CSL) cohort. CSL is a co-working facility that provides office space for Columbia alumni entrepreneurs. Two HPM alumni founders, Lauren Driscoll, MPH ’94, and Jason Friesen, MPH ’12, are members of CSL. They are each participating as HPM Preceptors this summer.
Shounak Ghosh, MPH ’20, will be working with Lauren Driscoll, founder of Project Well, an early-stage startup that seeks to partner with Medicare Advantage (MA) health plans to provide customized food and nutrition solutions to individuals with chronic diseases and who are food insecure. Shounak will be involved in all aspects of this innovative initiative, including research, data analysis, and product development. One component of Shounak’s practicum will be to recruit Medicare beneficiaries (ideally enrolled in an MA plan) who have chronic disease. Project Well will send them a week’s worth of prepared meals or meal kits in exchange for filling out a short survey and participating in a user interview with product developers.
Kaleigh Post, MPH ’20, will work with Jason Friesen, founder of Trek Medics, an international non-profit dedicated to improving emergency medical systems through innovative mobile phone technologies in communities without reliable access to emergency care. Kaleigh will be collecting research and improving the usability and function of the company's key product—an app that dispatches emergency care services. The work will include a combination of ethnographic research, data analysis, innovation and design, and knowledge about global health systems and communities.
2019 Summer Practicum at a Glance
Click here for a complete list of 2019 HPM summer practicum placements.
Practicum Opportunities
If your organization is interested in hosting an HPM student for a summer practicum opportunity, contact LaTanya Brown for more information.