With graduation just around the corner, my last year at Brown has been bittersweet but exciting. I completed a public health internship in Uganda to provide access to health services and education, developed a thesis on the link between perceived stigma and HIV in Southeast Asia, and worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduates in the Anthropology and Global Social Problems course.

I am pursuing my Master’s in Public Health because I believe that access to health shouldn’t be determined by wealth, and I want to help lead the change to ensure an individual’s access to a healthy, happy and safe life. I became interested in diarrheal diseases as an undergraduate student majoring in Biology, and I chose a future in global health after learning that providing the education and tools to enable people to wash their hands could prevent 50% of deaths from these diseases.

My education at Brown has taught me the importance of thinking globally and upstream. People in many regions in the world do not have access to high quality health treatment and are unable to pay for the treatment that’s available. But we’re also in an age of prevention as a global health worker. It’s my hope to change the viewpoint on the power of education until people are screaming prevention instead of only treatment.

After graduation in May, I hope to use my master’s education on a global level. I’ve fallen in love with the non-profit Uganda Village Project that was started by a Brown faculty member, and would love to be back working in Uganda. I have hopes of starting my own non-profit focused on using valued local community health workers to increase access to health education and testing in remote villages. Whether it’s working in Providence or East Africa, I will take what I’ve learned here at Brown wherever I go.