“You just helped me walk forward.” This line is credited to a Korean girl I worked alongside during my time with The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. Her words resonated within me, but they also served as a motivational catalyst for pursuing a career in Public Health. Initially, I enrolled in the University of Georgia intending to become a biochemical analyst, but I realized I was not able to conceptually connect my studies to my aspirations of globally serving communities. After conducting some research, I found myself attending many Global Health seminars, and I began to recognize trends of disparities that influenced community health. My career management strengthened, and I gained aptitude to promote precautions against illnesses, to practice preventative medicine, and to close communication gaps, present due to poorly implemented healthcare policies. Upon completing a Master’s in Epidemiology, I want to serve as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer for the Centers for Disease Control or the National Institutes of Health. I will use my creative license to advocate for more interdependent policies and to build more unified community infrastructure.
Furthermore, I work with the University Health Center to address the overall well-being of students and I volunteer at Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital. This allows me to experience the direct relationship between health policy and medical care. I serve as a Resident Assistant and I work with departments to facilitate intercultural exchange events and world cultural education retreats, allowing me to help ameliorate communities.
My short and long-term academic goals revolve around gaining more experience surrounding the COVID-19 genome and its influence on low-birth weight babies, preterm birth and overall women’s health. COVID-19 has demonstrated how it disproportionately affects numerous communities more than others, especially women of color and their involvement as caregivers. Analyzing their health status is especially prevalent in today’s society, as no restorative treatment exists, except available guidelines to manage their symptoms and exercise preventative care. Currently, I have experience presenting my scientific findings in front of audiences, such as at the American Public Health Association Annual Conference and Expo, that enabled me to gain priceless skills in the realm of research regarding treatment. My lab work empowers me to understand foundations in genomics, bioinformatics, and social inequities, while providing me with skills to conduct statistical analyses in discovering viable possibilities of treatment.
This opportunity will allow me to devote more of my abilities and time, enabling me to better assess the environmental and genomic determinants that potentially induce these reproductive diseases. Ultimately, I can begin pursuing my dreams to aid the fight against the spread of COVID -19 that is crippling individuals globally, and those who suffer among us.