MPH Alumni Profiles
Allison Bautista
What work have you done since graduation? Where do you currently work and what type of work do you do there?
After graduation I accepted a job at Any Baby Can in Austin and moved to Texas. I've been here since June of 2016 working as the Program Coordinator for the agency. Any Baby Can is a nonprofit that works with families of children with special healthcare needs by supporting them with nurses, therapists, social workers, and educators, all of whom do home visits. I fulfill an assortment of programmatic roles and things are constantly changing. Currently, I am running a program that provides hearing aids to children in Central Texas, organizing our Community Advisory Board, doing community outreach in various neighborhoods of Austin, and planning gatherings for the families we serve to connect with one another.
How have you used your SMS degree to transition into your current work?
At my job, there are a lot of case workers who have to focus on every single detail in the lives of the families they work with. I am fortunate because I not only get to interact with individual clients, but I am in a position to look at the health issues of Central Texas in a broader scope. I collaborate with schools, hospitals, and various community organizations. My SMS degree has helped me to not only listen to the individual stories, but frame issues into the larger systems in which they operate.
How has the "SMS lens" (seeing Public Health as embedded in social/cultural/economic/political contexts) influenced your professional attitudes and approaches in addressing issues in your work?
I feel very lucky to be living and working in the city of Austin. Not only is it a fantastic city, but it's the capital of Texas, which puts our organization in a very influential position. The Texas legislature met in early 2017 and the "SMS lens" gave me a more holistic view of the issues on the table and how they affect our clients. I could give a hundred examples from the legislature this year of proposals affecting Any Baby Can from Medicaid cuts, to bills on home visitation programs, to foster home reform. These proposals not only impact the funding we receive, but there are very real, tangential effects for the families we serve. For example, the ICE raids and sanctuary city bills being proposed have made some of the families we serve essentially go into hiding, which prevents us from reaching them and delivering the basic needs and therapy services they require. The "SMS lens" has helped me to draw connections from what I hear from individual families to things happening at our state capital and has helped drive our agency's advocacy response.
How has your view of public health changed (or not) since you were at student at Mailman?
As a student living in NYC, I was constantly amazed at how specialized interventions could get. Programs could be designed for very specific demographics, such as first-generation immigrant Hispanic males with hypertension living in Harlem, and they would be funded. Unfortunately, in Central Texas, we don't have as much diversity for these extremely specific interventions, nor do we have funding sources for such programs outside of universities. Any Baby Can has challenged me to look at health problems in a different manner to make our health programs flexible so they are as nonspecific as possible. We're aiming to reach everyone who is a parent, regardless of age, race, income, etc. The work of nonprofits and universities fills different needs, but I have now seen the value in having both targeted interventions and programs that are unrestricted.
Jim Etheridge
Where do you currently work and what type of work do you do there?
Currently, I work at McCann Global Health, a division of the advertising agency McCann Health that focuses on public health and social impact projects. My role is a mix of account management and strategic planning.
On the account side of things, I work with our clients to understand their communication and programmatic needs and help determine how our team can address these needs. On the strategy side of my job, I conduct desk research, analyze data, help develop the underlying strategic frameworks that inform program development, and work with external research agencies that facilitated our formative research and program evaluation.
While at McCann I have had the opportunity to work on a range of projects, ranging from developing a polio communications toolkit for UNICEF country officers, to building out open-source interpersonal communications materials for grass-root NGOs to educate mothers about pneumonia. Recently I have been focusing a majority of my time on our engagement with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. In collaboration with in-country partners we are currently developing a demand-creation campaign to drive the uptake of LPG cookstoves in two major Nigerian cities.
What made you interested in pursuing this work? Why do you enjoy it?
It may sound odd, but my interest in behavior change communication stems from a mistake that I made in undergrad. While registering for classes during my freshman year, I accidentally enrolled in a health communications course instead of a TV production course. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out (there’s no giant cameras and fancy lights in a health communications course). However, that feeling dissipated after the first class on behavioral theory, and from there on out I was hooked.
I enjoy working on behavior change projects because they’re like really big, unsolvable puzzles. Determining where communication can fit in amongst a myriad of behavioral determinants takes a unique mix of rigorous research and creative thinking.
How has the "SMS lens" (seeing Public Health as embedded in social/cultural/economic/political contexts) influenced your professional attitudes and approaches in addressing issues in your work?
Without a doubt the “SMS lens” has shaped my work. In fact, whenever I conduct formative research I use the socio-ecological model as an initial guiding framework to ensure I take into account a more comprehensive range of behavioral determinants. Previously, I doubt I would have put as much time into investigating structural factors as I do now.
How have your interests in public health changed (or not) since you were at Mailman?
Prior to Mailman I had very little interest in data analysis and visualization, but after the Core I ended up shifting my studies in that direction by adding the CEOR certificate. Now I’m working on incorporating the skills I learned in larger scale data analysis into how I approach the initial stages of a new project.
Winn Periyasamy
WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK AND WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO THERE?
My most recent position was at Alembic Unlimited, a public relations firm specializing in health advocacy and communications. In that position, I did a mix of communications and event consulting for patient advocacy and health promotion organizations. This included, in relation to bacterial meningitis, flu, and vaccine promotion, conducting literature research, event support, writing presentations and client materials, and producing videos PSAs.
WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN PURSUING THIS WORK? WHY DO YOU ENJOY IT?
I’ve always loved storytelling and have experience in filmmaking, writing, and audio production. I find that the human story is the most interesting one out there. To me, public health is the key to the human story and advocacy is about ensuring that people are living their best stories. The best part of my work, therefore, is that I get to use my academic interest in health and my experiences in storytelling and project management to help others live better lives.
HOW HAS THE "SMS LENS" (SEEING PUBLIC HEALTH AS EMBEDDED IN SOCIAL/CULTURAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL CONTEXTS) INFLUENCED YOUR PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDES AND APPROACHES IN ADDRESSING ISSUES IN YOUR WORK?
I really believe that the SMS lens is the lens that you need to be a good public health worker – everything is connected to health and health should be found in everything. Health should be taken into account in every policy change and understanding the chain of events that lead to adverse health consequences on an individual and population level can really help you see where you can intervene to help prevent those consequences.
It also taught me how to be open to health experiences I may not be familiar with or have direct exposure to. While writing my thesis, I ran into a great quote about narrative humility (a philosophy relating to improving the patient care journey and beyond that focuses on becoming aware of our own prejudices and on listening to the stories of people who are less powerful) – “Try to understand, realize you’ll never understand, try anyway.” This is so applicable to everything in life but I think that this kind of open and humble listening helps a lot in communications and advocacy as far as being open to trying to support and help others trying to advocate for better population health practices.
How have you applied the skills you learned in your SMS courses to your current work?
I use a lot of my literature skills to research and write/produce evidence-based videos, op-eds, and other health communications materials. SMS taught me both how to read journal articles and to pull together information I need to make research-informed arguments for promoting better health practices.
How has your view of public health changed while you were at student at Mailman?
Mailman and my time in the SMS department showed me that everything is connected – how environmental health connects to health advocacy, why disability advocacy is important in promoting the overall community’s health, that data and epidemiology represents the human story, that health promotion can help impact health policy, why every policy should take into account how it affects public health, etc. It taught me to respect all these varying aspects of public health and to see how they connect to each other to improve overall population health.
How have your interests in public health changed (or not) since you were at Mailman?
Since I graduated, I’ve become more interested in immigration advocacy and how that relates to improving the health of racial minority populations. This actually has a foundation in my time at Mailman – I took Dr. Bob and Professor Merlin Chowkwanyun’s great classes in race and health and health advocacy, have written about discrimination against immigrants and public health, and I devoted my thesis on cultural competency and other approaches to improving patient care for minority populations. The rhetoric and policy of the current political administration has shown a light on how important it is to stand up for, among others, immigrant rights – to show that we believe in standing in solidarity with anyone who faces discrimination and persecution just for choosing to pursue membership in a society that should welcome them and see the very best in them. My parents and countless others believed in coming here and contributing the very best of themselves to America. I want to be able to support that journey. So I feel that in the future, I want to pursue opportunities in immigrant rights and health.
Hina Tai
WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK AND WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO THERE?
I work at Perception Institute as a Research Associate. I work with a team of researchers, advocates and strategists on a number of projects and workshops that aim to address implicit bias, racial anxiety and stereotype threat using the mind sciences (i.e. social psychology and neuroscience primarily).
WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN PURSUING THIS WORK? WHY DO YOU ENJOY IT?
Much of my interest in social determinants and issues around race and identity stem from my own experiences as a Muslim American woman having grown up in a post-9/11 world. I have personally felt the effects of discrimination, stigma and racism at individual, interpersonal and structural levels and learned at an early age that the political is personal. This statement has never been more salient or true today given our current political climate. It is my experiences that drive me to do this work and make sure others never have to experience that same--if not worse--vulnerability and violence. I truly enjoy this work because I get to be in spaces where social justice and equity are at the forefront of people's minds.
HOW HAS THE "SMS LENS" (SEEING PUBLIC HEALTH AS EMBEDDED IN SOCIAL/CULTURAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL CONTEXTS) INFLUENCED YOUR PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDES AND APPROACHES IN ADDRESSING ISSUES IN YOUR WORK?
Often times, people ask me why it is that I studied public health, but have come to work on race and bias issues. My response is that this work is public health. SMS taught me that public health has no defined boundaries--social, political and economic forces all interact and intermingle to leave an imprint on your health and body. This is how I have come to view my work. While we do not always explicitly connect the dots between race and health--though it is an important domain of our work at Perception--social identity and race are significant determinants of health. My work is a small cog in a giant system working to improve health by addressing structural bias, racial disparities and racial anxiety--all factors that scientific research has shown adversely impacts health.
HOW HAVE YOU APPLIED THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED IN YOUR SMS COURSES TO YOUR CURRENT WORK?
SMS exposed me to a diverse set of skills in quantitative, qualitative, program evaluation, and social science theory that has been useful for the interdisciplinary nature of my work at every juncture. Many of our current projects rely on qualitative skills and I have been able to play a role in designing focus group guides, structured interview guides, and providing direction on best practices for conducting interviews.
HOW HAVE YOUR INTERESTS IN PUBLIC HEALTH CHANGED (OR NOT) SINCE YOU WERE AT MAILMAN?
Mailman played a critical role in shaping my views of public health as an interdisciplinary and dynamic field. While I came into Mailman not knowing what I wanted to do professionally, I was able to find a way to apply my interests in journalism, anthropology and social issues in a way that was meaningful and marketable. I left assured that there were opportunities out there that allowed me to pursue my passion for the social sciences and social justice. I was fortunate to find mentors among the SMS faculty who were able to guide me and help me hone my interests while I was still a student at Mailman.