"I’m drawn to the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of public health, which explicitly recognizes that history and economics are just as much connected to a person’s or a community’s health as biology and medicine are.

There are many different ways of understanding and promoting health rather than just looking at a single field in isolation.

For my master’s project, I wanted to find a way to combine all of my interests — health equity, mental health, rural health, and integrated health care delivery — into one topic. I’ll be working with a group of rural federally qualified health centers in the upper Midwest that received a grant from the University of Minnesota to implement telemedicine for treating mental illness. This would directly affect not only the health centers themselves, but patients who are in their own homes. It’s a perfect fit. I’m excited to work on it because it ties my interests together, especially since I’m really interested in integrating mental and behavioral health into health care systems.

I also have an interest in writing and public health communication. I am the founding co-executive editor of the Public Health Review, a student-led, peer-reviewed public health journal at the School of Public Health.”