Alumni Profiles: MPH
Caroline Johnson
Graduation Year: 2018
Certificate/Concentration: Global Health
Current Position: Policy Researcher, Maternal and Newborn Health Division, Population Council
WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK AND WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO THERE?
Global Health Corps fellow working as a Policy Researcher in the Maternal and Newborn Health Division at Population Council, Washington DC. I conduct qualitative data analysis for a 5-country project evaluating the impacts of pre-eclampsia/ eclampsia on women's lived experiences. I also support the MNH team on several projects within the reproductive health portfolio by conducting data analysis, creating briefs and manuscripts for dissemination of research to a wide audience from policy makers to collaborating partners in the field.
WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN PURSUING THIS WORK? WHY DO YOU ENJOY IT?
I was excited about the prospect of working in a research capacity, but with an emphasis on policy makers as the target audience for dissemination of findings. Programs and interventions are most sustainable when they are fully integrated into a country's health system, and the opportunity to share research with policy makers in order to strengthen existing health systems is both deeply satisfying and extremely challenging. I enjoy the chance to translate findings to people who otherwise might not engage with data in a meaningful way and hope to make clear why the work we do is both effective and feasible.
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?
Viewing the world through the SMS lens is like getting glasses for the first time and realizing that the green, fuzzy blobs were actually leaves on trees all along. You can't un-see the world more clearly, and you can't un-see public health as deeply and complexly embedded in social, cultural, economic, and political systems. Using the SMS lens has made me a better researcher and has forced me to ask hard, important questions at every turn - such as, how ARE we going to get government support for this program, and how will the economic gains for women weigh against the increased social stigma they might experience and how to we prevent or mitigate it? At what cost to the program we've spent months thinking about? These are the important, nitty-gritty questions that we have to ask ourselves in public health, and the SMS lens has enabled me to ask all of them, all the time, simultaneously, in the hopes of achieving greater health equity and better health outcomes as often as possible.
HOW HAVE YOU APPLIED THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED IN YOUR SMS COURSES TO YOUR CURRENT WORK?
From grappling with major ethical questions to developing a theory-based qualitative analysis plan, not a day goes by I don't refer to skills I learned in my SMS courses (shoutouts to Ron Bayer and Morgan Philbin, among others). I could not do my job without the skills I learned at Mailman.
HOW HAVE YOUR INTERESTS IN PUBLIC HEALTH CHANGED (OR NOT) SINCE YOU WERE AT MAILMAN?
I have always been interested in maternal and child health, and this is the first time I've been able to explore those interests in a professional capacity. My practicum and the work I did as an RA during my time at Mailman further convinced me that this was the population and research area I wanted to build a career in, so I am excited to see what the next few years bring.
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.
Tiffany Allen Archuleta
Graduation Year: 2015
Degree Program: MPH Accelerated
Current Position: Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton Military Health team
WHAT WORK HAVE YOU DONE SINCE GRADUATION? WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK AND WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO THERE?
After I graduated from Mailman in the fall of 2015, I started working for the Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) at New York University Langone Medical Center. During my two-year tenure as a Senior Research Coordinator, I worked with members of the council, who represented government agencies, industry, and medical centers, to develop policy recommendations on how to combat the rising resistance to antibiotics in both human and animal health. I currently work as a Senior Consultant for the Military Health team at Booz Allen Hamilton in the Washington D.C. area. My project team plans and advises the Defense Health Agency (DHA) on effective implementation of the new Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, MHS GENESIS, at military treatment facilities across the country.
HOW HAVE YOU APPLIED THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED IN YOUR SMS COURSES TO YOUR CURRENT WORK?
In my current work, I have applied various skills I learned in my SMS courses at Mailman. First, I have applied the knowledge I gained in the SMS evaluation course to assess how military health records are maintained at individual hospitals and clinics across the military health system. Second, I have applied skills I learned in the Health Promotion Program Planning course. Although not specifically planning a health promotion program, my team and I are planning the roll out of a more efficient EHR system for all three branches of the military. My Mailman education also contributed to my appreciation for the challenges seen in maternal and child health, as I am the proud new mother of twin baby boys!
HOW HAS YOUR VIEW OF PUBLIC HEALTH EVOLVED SINCE YOUR TIME AT MAILMAN?
In my work for the Presidential Advisory Council, I focused my attention on how public health research can influence public health policy. Even though we had the authority to make policy recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I saw how difficult policy change can be, especially in public health, when working with various public and private stakeholders. In my current role at Booz Allen Hamilton, I can now see and appreciate issues from a private sector perspective. I am working to make health care more efficient for service members and veterans alike. And as a US Army veteran myself, I am very proud of the work we are doing.
WHAT ARE THE ULTIMATE GOALS THAT YOU STRIVE TOWARDS IN THE FIELD OF PUBLIC HEALTH?
My ultimate career goal in the field of public health is to make health care better for our nations’ service members and veterans. As a combat veteran and military spouse, I am passionate about the health issues facing soldiers near and far. I strive to improve the delivery and cost of health care for this high-risk population. I hope to continue this work, whether in government or business, for the foreseeable future.
Thomas Silverman
Graduation Year: 2017
Certificate/Concentration: Epidemiology of Chronic Disease
Current Position: Staff Associate at Columbia University Department of Biomedical Informatics
WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK AND WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO THERE?
I work in Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics. I’m a research associate and help to manage a couple of trials that focus on informatics tools for breast cancer prevention.
WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN PURSUING THIS WORK? WHY DO YOU ENJOY IT?
The work is very multifaceted, incorporating a lot of different skills and disciplines cultivated by the SMS program—from research design, to quantitative and qualitative analysis, to community engagement—along with some fields that are new to me, like technology development. The tools that we are working on have the potential to expand prevention options to a broader population of high-risk women than currently benefits from such innovations, and they can help patients make more informed medical decisions, so the end-goals are worth working toward for me as well.
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 think the SMS lens has laid a solid foundation for addressing complex issues in a rigorous way. Most aspects of public health work, from developing interventions that adequately address a community or population’s needs to developing evaluations that can accurately measure those interventions’ effects, rely on at least some understanding of social contexts in order to be done well.
HOW HAVE YOU APPLIED THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED IN YOUR SMS COURSES TO YOUR CURRENT WORK?
I apply what I’ve learned in SMS courses almost every day. Like I said above, a lot of my work revolves around research and intervention development, so those classes, such as quant/survey design and intervention mapping, have been particularly useful for me.
HOW HAVE YOUR INTERESTS IN PUBLIC HEALTH CHANGED (OR NOT) SINCE YOU WERE AT MAILMAN?
I wouldn’t say that my interests have changed. Though one of the best things about Mailman, in my opinion, is the wide array of topics and fields it encompasses. If your interests change throughout your MPH program, I bet you’d be able to easily find someone who either works in that field or teaches a course on it, which is pretty great.