I love spending time with my wonderful wife and three amazing kids and doing or watching anything sports related. My time working with an FQHC really left me with a passion for increasing access to healthcare and eliminating disparities across marginalized groups. This led me to getting a Health Equity Minor as it serves as a great supplement to my MHA degree by helping me understand some of the health disparity issues that exist in our system today and allow me to start thinking of ways that I can make an impact in these areas from whatever roles I hold in my career.

During her time at the University of Kansas, Maddie had planned on attending medical school after graduation and did many volunteering activities that showed her the issues within the medical system and where change could occur. One of those organizations that she was able to work with was Jaydoc Free Clinic within Kansas City. She worked as a social service coordinator and this position allowed her to fully understand the depth of the disparities that existed and how many of those people were forgotten about by the system that exists. This work led to more work within other communities, such as a trip to work with Healthy Columbia, an organization in Columbia, SC that frequently invites pre-medical students to learn about ways that public health can make an impact. After graduating in the spring of 2020, Maddie decided to pursue the passion that she was guiding herself toward this whole time, public health.

Because of her medical background, she enjoys the intersection of disease pathology and health equity, with a specific interest in sexual infectious diseases and neglected tropical diseases.

Although not currently working in public health, Maddie has been enjoying working at one of her favorite restaurants, Young Joni. During her free time, she enjoys hiking with her dog Rosie throughout Minnesota, taking walks along the many lakes in the area, thrifting, and exploring new restaurants.

Spencer is currently the Project Coordinator at the National Center for Gender Spectrum Health where they support community-based research projects to improve gender affirming health care for trans and gender diverse people across the lifespan. Spencer is also a practicum therapist specializing in trauma & gender affirming somatic experiencing therapy for trans and gender diverse folks at Edges Wellness Center, LLC. Spencer has a BA in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota and an AA in Philosophy from Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Health equity is not just a framework or approach to work; it is embodying a collective and collaborative way of being in our communities despite the vast individualism and hostility embedded into U.S. society. Before entering graduate school, Spencer spent 10 years providing case management services to queer and trans youth living with HIV and/or experiencing home/houselessness as well as adults living with mental illness & unsustainable substance use while experiencing homelessness. Spencer sought to work with others in their community experiencing similar systemic and social barriers that come with surviving under capitalism and White supremacy. Their experiences of familial incarceration, homelessness, unsustainable substance use, and reliance on the medical industrial complex has only deepened their drive for liberation.

The decade of crisis case management work led Spencer to seek a graduate career in mental health therapy. To their surprise, the dual degree option allowed Spencer to pursue both individual level healing from a social work perspective while learning about public health systems influencing and contributing to the need for healing. Health equity is more than a minor for Spencer. Health equity is the driving force in every part of their life. Spencer seeks a future in which healthy is an expectation; not a state of being that must be earned. As organizer and activist, Mariame Kaba, notes: Our charge is to make imagining liberation under oppression completely thinkable, to really push ourselves to think beyond the normal in order for us to be able to address the root causes of people’s suffering.

Catie chose to complete the Health Equity Minor because she feels it is part of her duty as a future physician to advocate for health equity in her practice. She hopes to help all her patients achieve their optimal health, and to do that, action is required beyond the clinical walls. The Health Equity Minor has given Catie the knowledge and tools to begin this work.

Catie will return to medical school in June 2023 where she will be participating in the Rural Physicians Associate Program in Princeton, MN during her third year. Once completing medical school, she aims to pursue an OB/GYN residency with an emphasis on reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ inclusive care. She intends to apply what she learned in her Health Equity Minor to her clinical practice wherever her career takes her.

She first developed an interest in health equity through her experiences as a healthcare worker and her involvement in antiracist activism. Her professional interests include water quality and infectious disease and their relationship to health equity. She holds a bachelor's degree in public health from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. Prior to pursuing her education in public health, Colette worked in the maritime industry. She has sailed in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and in every Great Lake. Back on land, Colette works for Fairview in surgical support services and is a volunteer water monitor for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. She is excited for the opportunity to combine her passions for water, health, and social justice as an MPH student at the University of Minnesota and in her future career.

I am originally from southwest Michigan and completed my undergraduate degree at BYU in Public Health with an emphasis in Health Promotion. During my undergraduate degree, I spent time working with the American Cancer Society on policy changes to expand insurance coverage for cancer patients. Through this work, I developed a passion for expanding access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. I was drawn to the Health Equity Minor to expand my understanding of equity and learn from other perspectives. After graduation, I will move to southern Wisconsin to work as an Administrative Fellow for Mercyhealth. I believe what I have learned during the minor can be applied to my future work to help push forward health equity.

I have always been very passionate about improving the healthcare system as my mom is a labor and delivery nurse. I was immediately drawn to the Health Equity Minor as combating systemic health disparities is the key reason why I decided to work in healthcare. Knowing how fragmented and broken the US healthcare system is, I am dedicated to improving it for those who have faced the most discrimination and harm. Since coming to Minnesota, I have worked at Hennepin Health, a Medicaid managed care plan in Minneapolis. I am very passionate about improving access and care experience for Medicaid populations. I love healthcare innovation and care deeply about patient experience especially for those from politically and socially disenfranchised communities. The Health Equity Minor will be something I am proud to have and carry throughout my career as a healthcare professional. I will apply the concepts of addressing health disparities and systemic harm throughout my work and will promote projects that align with my values in health equity. This June I am excited to be starting a role as an Administrative Fellow at HealthPartners here in the Twin Cities.

Mariah returned to school after a six-year career in public health. She has served as an Adolescent Health Consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, a Public Health Associate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Community Health Worker on the Hennepin County COVID-19 response. In her first year at SPH, Mariah served as a Graduate Assistant on a Community-Based Participatory Research project in partnership with Northside Achievement Zone. This project created a new College-Bound Scholars curriculum for middle and high school students and their parents.

Mariah’s public health career has emphasized for her the necessity of work toward health equity and justice. She is committed to carrying forward what she has learned in her future roles, ideally continuing on her path of community-driven systems change work.

Jenna was drawn to the health equity minor because social justice and equity have been intrinsic values that call to her personal and professional life. The courses provided through the Health Equity minor were pivotal in her educational experience at the SPH. Classes such as Rural Health, Adolescent Health, Sex, Sexuality, and Reproductive Health were favorites among all the curricula Jenna took at SPH. She wants to use all that she has learned and absorbed through class discussions and readings apply it to her future work. Jenna wants to pursue medical school after graduation, to intentionally incorporate the fundamental values of health as a human right, social justice, and equity into her medical career. She wants to take a public health approach to medicine and our medical system.

Jenna goes to concerts, camping, and thrifting in her free time.

Getting my undergrad in geography in environment and sustainability I knew there were many crucial crossovers with space and health, so I’m happy I was able to pursue both here. My mom got her PhD in public health so I grew up with someone always connecting anything back to public health – workers’ rights, our relationship with others, and yearly “do it for the herd” stickers.

The health equity minor has broadened my definition of health and furthers my understanding of how my work as a planner is integral to people’s lives. I am planning to work as an active transportation planner for mostly rural communities. Hopefully I’ll be part of making the public right of way more accessible and even joyful for wherever people want to go!

During her undergraduate years and experiences working at a nonprofit, she centered her work around equity and creating community-driven services and programs, and meeting individuals where they are and their needs. From her lived experiences, she recognized that systematic, structural, and social barriers prevent access to resources and services. She is motivated to work on upstream efforts to address the root causes of inequities. The importance of culturally relevant programs for marginalized and underinvested communities guided her to the health equity minor. She feels that the health equity minor served as a bridge between her two programs, centering her career goal of participating in a system change to create an equitable health system that fosters collective actions and responsibilities, accountability, and relationships and connections between all individuals and groups at the different system levels.

Prior to starting her MPH program, Maddy spent four years in Philadelphia working in food security, hunger relief, and urban agriculture. She became interested in public health as an avenue to address food access, health disparities, and social justice. Maddy originally planned on utilizing her MPH degree towards ensuring equitable access to nutritious and culturally relevant food for all communities. Through her coursework and community involvement, she has also developed a professional interest in the intersection of social equity and cannabis legalization. Although Maddy is not sure which field she wants to pursue, she leaves the University of Minnesota School of Public Health with an unwavering commitment to equity and justice, fueled by storytelling and community-based work.

In her free time, Maddy can be found exploring new restaurants in the Twin Cities or walking around Lake of the Isles, drinking a chai latte and listening to her favorite podcast.

Wisconsin born and raised, Haley grew up in Milwaukee and obtained her Bachelor of Science at the University of Wisconsin Madison with a major in Spanish and minors in Global Health and Gender Studies. After undergrad, she moved back to Milwaukee, worked as a Bilingual Reproductive Healthcare Assistant at Planned Parenthood for about two years, solidifying her love for reproductive justice and the crucial role of public health.

Passionate about and committed to expanding access to safe and legal abortion, addressing the social and political determinants of health, creating equitable solutions to disparities in pregnancy and birth outcomes, and working to reject White Supremacy and dismantle harmful systems that create and perpetuate disparities, Haley was naturally drawn to the Health Equity Minor. This foundation, in conjunction with her love of learning both in and outside of the classroom, motivated Haley to make a concerted effort to seek out opportunities to generate, share, and absorb knowledge beyond the classroom walls. She works at Minnesota Department of Health in the Family Home Visiting sector, interns with the Reproductive Health Alliance of Minnesota to guarantee access to reproductive healthcare in MN, serves as the Alumni Outreach Coordinator for the Maternal and Child Health National Network, is a member of a national network of public health students building capacity for abolition as a public health intervention, and recently stepped down as a Podcast Editor for the UMN graduate student-run public health journal podcast, Perspectives. In whatever time she has left, Haley loves to run the many trails around Minneapolis, read, and more than anything, spend time cooking and relaxing with family and friends. She also recently became trained as a volunteer abortion clinic escort and is excited to further engage in protecting equitable access to abortion.

Come May, when she graduates, Haley will stay in Minneapolis to continue building and strengthening connections with her community. She does not yet have a job lined up but hopes to find a position in sexual and reproductive health, ideally supporting the work of indie abortion clinics. Wherever she lands, Haley is confident she will incorporate the knowledge, skills, and teachings from the Health Equity Minor into her work for years to come.

Grace previously received her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota. Through her undergraduate studies and part time work in the field of chemistry, she became disillusioned with the priority of scientific advancement and research over environmental and human health, which is what drew her to health equity. Currently, her professional and academic interests include social epidemiology, health in all policies (HIAP) research, and harnessing the power of data to further the cause of health equity. Following graduation, she aims to work in health equity data analytics using the tools and knowledge gained in the health equity minor to guide her research questions and analyses.

I was drawn to the Health Equity Minor (HEM) because I wanted to learn more about what health equity is and understand how it impacts people in all aspects of their lives.  I am hoping the HEM will help me better understand how to effectively and ethically research with communities. I would like to work as a community-engaged researcher incorporating community voices into policies that impact them directly. My policy interests include social policies dealing with immigration/migration, housing, and mental health.

I have always been drawn to the idea of achieving health equity and improving health outcomes for underserved communities. This passion inspired me to pursue the Health Equity minor, where I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the systemic issues that contribute to health disparities and develop skills to address these issues. I believe that the Health Equity minor will provide me with the necessary knowledge and skills to make a positive impact in my future career. I plan to work with communities to support them in fighting health disparities and promoting health equity. I recognize that achieving health equity requires a multidisciplinary approach and hopes to collaborate with professionals from various fields to create sustainable solutions. In the future, I hope to work for a public health organization or government agency where I can use my skills and knowledge to create policies and programs that prioritize health equity. Ultimately, my goal is to make a significant impact in improving health outcomes for underserved communities and inspire others to work towards achieving health equity.

After undergrad, Nicole worked as a medical scribe at a clinic in Minnesota. In this job, it became apparent that there were structural factors impacting the patient’s overall health that were not being addressed. So, Nicole pursued the Health Equity Minor to gain a better understanding of the structural factors leading to the health inequities in our society, and how to help improve them in the future.

Following her graduation in May, she plans to attend medical school. In the future, Nicole plans to combine her medical knowledge and public health training to provide direct, comprehensive care to patients while also advocating for health equity in underserved populations.

In her free time, Nicole enjoys hiking, running, watching college basketball, baking, and visiting restaurants/ coffee shops.

While at Macalester, Brooke worked as a health promotion peer educator, creating wellness initiatives for students on campus in the areas of mental, physical, and sexual health. In this role, she fell in love with public health and recognized the power of peer education. Her interests are adolescent and young adult health, mental health, and health communication. In the future, she wants to work as a health promotion specialist on a college campus, working with students who are peer educators.

Brooke decided to complete the Health Equity minor because she is passionate about reducing and eliminating health disparities to ensure that all people have access to the resources and opportunities that they want and need to be healthy and happy. The minor has helped broaden her knowledge about health inequities and their impacts, gain skills to dismantle oppressive systems that maintain these inequities, and learn strategies for equity work in her future career.

Alongside her master’s coursework, Brooke works for the Child and Teen Checkups program at the Minnesota Department of Health. At the University of Minnesota, she is an ambassador for the School of Public Health, the co-president of the Interprofessional Student Garden, a violence prevention educator with the Aurora Center, a copy editor for the Public Health Review Journal, and plays her clarinet in a campus band. Brooke enjoys yoga, baking, reading, traveling, gardening, and spending time with family and friends.

With experience in public health nonprofits and healthcare IT, she is passionate about bringing together diverse stakeholders to make health equity innovations a reality. Kayla has 10 years of experience with health systems and food insecurity initiatives as a food bank coordinator in Seattle, data analyst for a public health evaluation nonprofit, mobile market coordinator in Phoenix, and health IT project manager in Madison. After graduation, she hopes to take this cross-sector experience and public health education to improve how health systems respond to social needs.

The Health Equity minor highlighted the importance of listening and centering those who are most disproportionally impacted in rebuilding our systems of health. Social Determinants of Health has become a buzzword in healthcare, when it could prompt us to look at health in a more transformative way. Coursework in the health equity minor introduced Kayla to frameworks across disciplines to start this work. Kayla is thankful for colleagues that she met across programs because of this minor (Public Health, Humphrey School, Health Sciences, Social Work, community practitioners, justice advocates) that pushed her to grow in new ways. Kayla also appreciates her time as a graduate research assistant for two years at the Institute on the Environment. She was able to apply many of the tools and knowledge from a health equity perspective when working with Ramsey and Washington counties to understand food waste and food recovery.

In her free time, Kayla enjoys composing music, trying out new knitting patterns, and traveling to visit friends and family.

After bouts pursuing areas like education, medicine, and politics during her early schooling, Mary Anne realized that the field of public health combined and reflected all of these passions at once. After getting involved in health disparities research based at the UAB Cancer Center in her junior year of undergrad, she knew with certainty that public health is where she was meant to be. Mary Anne’s broad interests are health and social policy. She’s interested in the ways that policies related to housing, education, nutrition, and transportation support and harm health, especially for low-income communities. She loves interpreting and translating data for use in advocacy and policy making.

During her time at UMN SPH, Mary Anne served as the Managing Editor for the Public Health Review, a student-run, peer-reviewed research journal which aims to remove barriers to publishing and support authors from any discipline and experience level as they tackle important public health topics. She was drawn to the role based on her own experience in research and publishing and being overwhelmed and intimidated by the formality of it all. Working as an editor only reinforced her belief and motivation that research is for all and by all, and that community-engaged work is where change happens. She has also worked as a research assistant on several rural health-focused projects and as an intern at the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities in the Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

The Health Equity minor has proved to be an invaluable step along her academic path. After so many years of conceptualizing and re-conceptualizing the issues surrounding health disparities, the Health Equity minor courses finally helped her see courses of action. She received practical and applicable tools for future work – both in research and outside, and she built community and connection with peers. After graduation, Mary Anne plans to pursue a career in policy research. She’s thrilled and encouraged to work alongside other public health students, researchers, and practitioners who are committed to eliminating health inequities.

Rachael currently works at Be The Match as a Donor Recruitment Coordinator where she helps spread awareness of the need for stem cell donors, and works with patients and their families in their search for a matching donor. Rachael is passionate about helping individuals with chronic disease navigate the complex healthcare system and feel empowered and respected through the process. Having been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease at 19 years old, Rachael knows what it is like when our healthcare system works, and how devastating it can be when it does not. Rachael hopes to use her degree, and her lived experience, to contribute and advocate for a more equitable and accessible healthcare system. Rachael is also completing an internship at Second Harvest Heartland as a Measurement and Evaluation intern and works part time as a research assistant at the University of Minnesota.

When she’s not working and going to school, Rachael enjoys hiking with her husband and dog, Scout, and eating her way through the Twin Cities restaurant scene.

Rachael currently works at Be The Match as a Donor Recruitment Coordinator where she helps spread awareness of the need for stem cell donors, and works with patients and their families in their search for a matching donor. Rachael is passionate about helping individuals with chronic disease navigate the complex healthcare system and feel empowered and respected through the process. Having been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease at 19 years old, Rachael knows what it is like when our healthcare system works, and how devastating it can be when it does not. Rachael hopes to use her degree, and her lived experience, to contribute and advocate for a more equitable and accessible healthcare system. Rachael is also completing an internship at Second Harvest Heartland as a Measurement and Evaluation intern and works part time as a research assistant at the University of Minnesota.

When she’s not working and going to school, Rachael enjoys hiking with her husband and dog, Scout, and eating her way through the Twin Cities restaurant scene.

Kaitlyn is interested in understanding and researching health promotion for racialized populations and pregnant/postpartum people. She is specifically looking at investigating the efficacy of home-based physical activity interventions and how physical activity can fit into busy schedules and environments that have unique barriers. Kaitlyn became interested in the Health Equity minor after noticing a gap in the literature for research on these populations within the field and a personal lack of knowledge about systemic and environmental racism that impacts people’s ability to be able to engage in healthy behaviors. After graduation, Kaitlyn hopes to be able to continue this work either by continuing with and advocating for more research dedicated toward advancing health equity in health promotion.

She previously received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology with minors in neuroscience and public health from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Between 2019-2022, she worked on research studies at the University of Minnesota studying the impact of psychosis on the brain. Yeliz became interested in public health when she realized that mental health care is often a privilege and that many communities lack adequate access to mental health care.

Once she started her Master’s in public health, her interests expanded to include epidemiology and vaccine equity. Although her interest in public health has shifted, her passion for health equity remains. She currently works at the Minnesota Department of Health in the Vaccine Preventable Disease unit to improve vaccine uptake, especially among populations with less access to healthcare. Health equity will continue to guide her work throughout her public health career. In her free time, she loves to spend time going on walks and playing with her puppy Oliver (featured in her picture).

Throughout all of Katie’s professional and academic ventures, her focus has been on filling gaps in knowledge and resource provision. In 2014, Katie co-founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to combatting sexual violence in online spaces, an area of work largely overlooked by existing organizations in the sexual violence prevention space. She also worked as a Community Support Specialist, assisting adults with disabilities in accessing the resources necessary to live a life they were proud of. Katie worked with middle and high schoolers in Minneapolis Public Schools through 2020 and 2021. During this time, her students fought for stability amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest following George Floyd’s murder. Seeing the struggles her students faced, Katie felt moved to dedicate her professional efforts to supporting community-level change among historically underresourced populations.

During her time with the School of Public Health, Katie has focused on developing resources to address long-term health outcomes related to mental illness and traumatic experiences in childhood and adolescence. Katie created lesson plans in partnership with the Minneapolis Health Department’s School-Based Clinics program to educate high schoolers and their caregivers on sexual consent in online communication. She wholeheartedly believes in the power of storytelling and creative expression as a means of connecting community members, identifying needs, and creating lasting change. Young people, Katie believes, have a particular capacity to create innovative solutions to public health issues. It’s Katie’s greatest professional aspiration to empower young people to make those solutions a reality.

Through her studies in the Health Equity Minor, Katie has gained an invaluable understanding of public health approaches to empowerment and justice. The diversity in social issues addressed by the minor has highlighted how systems of oppression work with one another to perpetuate harm and, conversely, the importance of intersectional work in dismantling these systems. After graduation, Katie hopes to work in program development and implementation related to youth and sexual or mental health, taking inspiration from other arenas to create tailored, community-led supports.

As a student in the School of Public Health, Maddie has worked with the Minneapolis Urban Initiative to develop their Sexual Health Storytelling Campaign, the Pine County Public Health Department to evaluate several workplace wellbeing initiatives, and Mano a Mano International to develop culturally tailored, educational public health materials for rural communities. She also works as a research assistant with Dr. Carolyn Porta on projects including an R01 grant application aimed at addressing sexual harassment in the biomedical research field and a survey project to assess Minnesota nurses’ attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs regarding the use of psychedelics in healthcare settings. Maddie also serves as a Violence Prevention Educator with the Aurora Center for Advocacy and Prevention and as a support chair with the Rural Health Interest Group on campus.

The Health Equity minor was a major part of what brought Maddie to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She is grateful for the opportunities she’s had to learn with and from her peers and is excited to continue to apply a health equity lens to her post-grad work. Maddie is interested in the intersections of rural health, sexual health, LGBTQ+ health, and health equity and plans to pursue a career using the lens of reproductive justice to improve the health of rural communities. In her (limited) spare time, Maddie enjoys reading, being outdoors, watching movies, and spending time with her partner, her friends, and her two cats.

She currently works as a Program Care Coordinator for Early Youth Eyecare Community Initiative at Phillips Eye Institute, working to promote equity in childhood vision health. In her role, Taylor provides vision screenings in Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools and then works with families to identify and remove barriers to receiving treatment including coordinating and funding vision care, providing interpreters, and organizing transportation.

Taylor became interested in health equity while working as a medical scribe at Northpoint Health and Wellness, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in North Minneapolis. At Northpoint, she observed that patient health was shaped by many factors beyond medical care and that health disparities were largely driven by inequities in social, environmental, and community factors. She later came to understand these factors as the social determinants of health, influenced by pervasive systems of racial and social injustice. Around the same time, Taylor was in treatment for an eating disorder and was introduced to the Health At Every Size Framework, a weight-inclusive approach to patient care and a social justice movement working to end weight-based discrimination. She became interested in weight stigma but noticed that it was often left out of the conversation when discussing systemic forms of oppression and their impacts on health.

While Taylor originally planned to apply to medical school in 2020, these experiences motivated her to postpone her application to pursue an MPH at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities. She chose the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) program given its emphasis on social justice and family systems. The Health Equity minor complemented the MCH curriculum well and allowed her to develop a solid understanding of the historical roots of health inequities and the systems that continue to perpetuate them today. Ultimately, Taylor hopes to continue her education in medical school to train as a family medicine provider and provide individualized, inclusive health care through a public health lens. One day, she would love to work at an FQHC like Northpoint.

She currently works at Planned Parenthood North Central States, Minnesota’s local Planned Parenthood affiliate, as a Senior Research Coordinator in their Research Department. Her professional interests include contraceptive and abortion access, and reproductive justice, health, and equity. Shay’s previous work in abortion care exposed her to the deep inequities in reproductive healthcare and drew her to the Health Equity minor in the School of Public Health. She plans to continue her work at Planned Parenthood after graduation and is eager to continue researching how to best increase equitable access to reproductive healthcare and incorporate her learnings from the School of Public Health into her professional work.

He is fascinated in the roles communication plays in equitable community health promotion. Specifically, he is passionate about how media use and information behaviors contribute to health disparities and equity. Another area that interests Ming-Ching is strategic efforts to address health disparities and improve health equity among Asian American populations. Through the Health Equity Minor coursework, Ming-Ching explored numerous topics related to diversity and inclusion, such as mental health service use among Chinese Americans, communication about health equity, community assets in LGBTQ+ populations, and rural health profiles. In his Applied Practical Experience, Ming-Ching Liang worked with Picture Impact, a design and evaluation agency for social change located in Minneapolis, on a research project to better understand principles and practices among professionals who had worked with audiences with lower literacy levels. Currently, Ming-Ching Liang serves as an evaluation intern at Second Harvest Heartland on the Theory of Change Project. He co-developed work group session plans and co-facilitated the sessions.

While working towards his MPH degree, Ming-Ching Liang teaches health communication, information study, and media study classes in the Department of Professional Communication at Metropolitan State University. He has authored several peer-reviewed papers on health information behaviors, tobacco control, handwashing, and science communication. Ming-Ching Liang is also engaged in the Social Justice Leadership Certificate Program and the Equity and Diversity Certificate Program at UMN.

She previously received her Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition Science from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her interest in public health results from wanting to understand the intersection between societal structures and individual behavior. Her professional interests include social epidemiology, nutrition and infectious disease research with a focus on health equity. She will be pursuing a research career in hopes of beginning an Epidemiology PhD program. While she isn’t sure of the exact field of her future research, it will certainly focus on local health inequities. In her free time, Madalyn trains as an amateur Muay Thai fighter. She also enjoys trail running, spending time with her cats and seeking out new bakeries in the Twin Cities area.

She received her bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies, with a second major in Biology, from the University of Chicago. She then went on to teach high school biology in DC Public Schools while pursuing her Master of Arts in Teaching from American University. She returned to Minnesota and earned her MD at the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed her residency in family medicine at Hennepin Healthcare. She is a board-certified family physician.

Her work in public education and clinical work at a county medical center and a federally qualified health center drives her work in health equity and social justice. The Health Equity Minor curriculum provided her the opportunity to gain a strong understanding of the structural causes of health inequalities and the tools to address them. The interdisciplinary cohort made this especially rich.

She will continue her work as a primary care physician and health equity research as well as with the Resilience in Immigration lab and as a member of the MAFP Health Equity committee.

Since graduating with a B.A. in Communication, Journalism and a minor in Anthropology in 2013, Lauren has enjoyed working toward health equity through a variety of positions and with a variety of populations. Over the past decade, Lauren’s professional experience has included: volunteering with refugee resettlement programs; providing case management in a housing first program; providing victim advocacy and support for families experiencing violence; program administration in the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Division on Aging and Adult Services; research, training, and program evaluation in the substance use and mental health field; community organizing in support of environmental rights and renter’s rights; and providing individual, group, and family therapy for young adults experiencing psychosis. Through these diverse experiences, two common threads have emerged that define Lauren’s interests: the importance of addressing systemic barriers to health in partnership with individuals and communities who experience these barriers most acutely, and the impact of leadership on developing policies, programs and cultures that promote health equity. The Health Equity Minor has provided Lauren with the education and skills needed to deepen their work in these areas and pursue a career in leadership that is focused on building a more equitable society.

Jessica is originally from California’s Central Coast where she was unknowingly exposed to various environmental health injustices. While her curiosity surrounding parasites and diseases is what first introduced her to the field of Public Health, she honed her interests in on Environmental Health while a student at Berkeley where she conducted research on indoor air quality and children’s health. While at the UMN she has participated in the IonE Graduate Scholars Program as well as consulting with the Community Health Initiative program.

Jessica chose to continue her education at the UMN to develop her skills to further serve marginalized communities facing environmental injustices. She decided to pursue the Health Equity minor when she recognized the few options the EHS department offered surrounding the interconnectedness of health equity and the environment. Jessica hopes to apply what she has learned about health equity and environmental health in her future career involving environmental justice and immigrant occupational health. In her spare time Jessica enjoys vegan baking, thrifting, running, concert-going, and visiting different churches around the Twin Cities.

Jessica is originally from California’s Central Coast where she was unknowingly exposed to various environmental health injustices. While her curiosity surrounding parasites and diseases is what first introduced her to the field of Public Health, she honed her interests in on Environmental Health while a student at Berkeley where she conducted research on indoor air quality and children’s health. While at the UMN she has participated in the IonE Graduate Scholars Program as well as consulting with the Community Health Initiative program.

Jessica chose to continue her education at the UMN to develop her skills to further serve marginalized communities facing environmental injustices. She decided to pursue the Health Equity minor when she recognized the few options the EHS department offered surrounding the interconnectedness of health equity and the environment. Jessica hopes to apply what she has learned about health equity and environmental health in her future career involving environmental justice and immigrant occupational health. In her spare time Jessica enjoys vegan baking, thrifting, running, concert-going, and visiting different churches around the Twin Cities.

Her professional interests include birthing practices, children’s mental health, and the impact that adverse childhood experiences have on health outcomes. She was drawn to the Health Equity minor after learning about the influence that medical racism has had on the Black community in the US. She believes the minor has given her more tools to support the health of women and children of color. For her next adventure, Bella will be working as an Early Childhood Communications Specialist.

In her free time, Bella enjoys painting, exploring nature, and trying out new restaurants in the Twin Cities.

Holly first became interested in working in public health during her senior year of college when she realized that most of her self-guided undergraduate research projects revolved around the ways that ethical considerations can serve as guides for public health policy development. When the last semester of her undergraduate career was disrupted due to the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became even clearer to her that she wanted to dedicate her life to improving health and health outcomes on population and systems levels. The Health Equity Minor aligns with Holly’s firm belief that public health policies (and policies more generally) need to be grounded in and guided by ethics, equity, and justice. Coursework for both the Health Equity Minor and MPH programs allowed Holly to explore how policy can serve as a means of reducing reproductive health inequities and improving health outcomes on a systems level. Holly is profoundly grateful to both programs for providing her with the foundation and skills necessary to engage in health equity work.

Ultimately, Holly hopes to use her public health and health equity education and training to advocate for the needs of people with chronic pain, chronic illness, and chronic disease conditions, particularly those relating to reproductive health. She also aspires to work to reduce inequities in time to diagnosis for reproductive health conditions and promote the use of gender-inclusive language in reproductive health care spaces. On the rare occasion that she has free time, Holly enjoys playing guitar, searching for the best hot chocolate in the Twin Cities, and browsing Petfinder.

After completing his undergraduate education, Grant spent a year in New Orleans as a City Year AmeriCorps Member He worked at a school in New Orleans East school doing academic enrichment and socio-emotional learning with 1^st through 8^th graders. This experience fundamentally reshaped the way Grant saw and understood systems of oppression and how they constantly restrict and inhibit the happiness and well-being of students.

During his time in his MPH program, Grant was able to explore a variety of public health practices around evaluation and community engagement skills with a focus on how to move research and assessments into action and policy to address health inequities. Having taken classes in community based participatory methods, communication, urban design, and evaluation among others, Grant is excited to consider himself a public health generalist. He is interested in working on big issues around the built environment, participatory program design and evaluation, and using public health to help re-imagine the just city.

During his down time, Grant enjoys baking, exploring the great Twin Cities bike paths, and checking out local bookstores, coffee shops, and bakeries. After graduating he will be taking his skills and passions to the Eau Claire City-County Health department as a fellow in the Wisconsin Population Health Services.

She currently works as a clinical research assistant at the VA Medical Center where she helps improve patient care through diuretic medication research.

Eustacia’s health interests include health equity, immigrant health, health literacy, interprofessional collaboration, and primary care medicine. Her identity as a Nigerian immigrant and Black woman guide her understanding of health equity. She serves on the board of the Health, Education, Advocacy, and Learning (HEAL) Program. This community outreach program provides culturally competent health education to English-language learners at the English Learning Center in Minneapolis. One major goal of the program is to help increase health literacy amongst immigrant and refugee populations here in the Twin Cities through public health, medical, and dental educational lessons. In her free time, Eustacia loves to lift at the gym, make new candles from old, burnt-out candles, and watch telenovelas.

What drew Eustacia to the Health Equity Minor was the opportunity to focus her graduate studies towards understanding how health inequities are created. She will begin medical school in the fall of 2022 and will apply the information she has gained through this minor towards decreasing these inequities in healthcare. Eustacia plans to use this knowledge to increase healthcare access and improve patient care amongst underserved communities in her future career. She hopes to work in primary care and continue to be involved in community outreach programs similar to HEAL.

Prior to pursuing her master’s, Elizabeth worked for six years in the field of community health as a sexual health educator through the Community HealthCorps, a public health advisor with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe Health Services Division and the Puerto Rico Department of Health, and a nutrition coordinator for Dream of Wild Health in Minneapolis. These years of professional work in various sectors and communities allowed her to explore the current practice and history of public health in the United States and the urgent need to challenge the interlocking systems of oppression that perpetuate health inequities locally and globally. As an MPH student at the University of Minnesota, Elizabeth has focused her coursework on community-engaged and human-centered approaches to policy, systems and environmental change, Tribal sovereignty and natural resource management, and alternative ways of knowing. Elizabeth will continue this work in a professional and personal capacity following her graduation.

Prior to coming to the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Dakota received his Bachelor of Urban Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and then served two years for Public Allies Milwaukee (AmeriCorps). While a Public Allies fellow with the Housing Authority for the City of Milwaukee, he worked with the Choice Neighborhood Initiative to support the transformation of Wisconsin’s largest public housing development into a mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood. Through this work, he engaged with residents and community health workers around improving fresh food access and improving infant mortality rates in the neighborhood. This fostering of a healthy and sustainable community led him to learn more about the interaction between urban planning and public health and ultimately pursue the Health Equity minor.

Whether it be housing, transportation, or land-use, many of the decisions planners make will impact the health of people. The Health Equity minor has been a rewarding experience to reflect on how my career interests in planning can address health and racial disparities and not repeat the systemic harm that the planning profession has had on communities. Dakota believes the coursework of the Health Equity minor has given him many tools and frameworks to intentionally and authentically engage those disproportionately impacted by systemic harm and take an asset-based approach to develop solutions. In the future, he hopes to support healthy and sustainable communities through affordable housing and equitable community development.

I was drawn to the Health Equity Minor due to my lived experiences growing up low-income as a Black woman in the US, as well as learning about the experiences of various marginalized and underserved populations in the US. Additionally, I was interested in learning more about intersectionality and systemic factors, and how to create community-driven interventions focused on these two concepts. The coursework from this minor has provided me with insight of other marginalized communities that are often not represented in mainstream culture/healthcare (i.e. rural communities). I am excited to utilize the competencies from the minor working either conducting community-based research or creating and evaluating community-based interventions.

Choua had a wide range of experiences working in multiple healthcare facilities throughout her undergraduate years and became interested in public health after realizing her strengths were more parallel in community and institutional work rather than clinical and individual-level consultation work. She has a huge intersecting passion for social justice and population health especially Asian and immigrant populations. Her interests lie within nutrition; health education and communication; and curriculum and training development. Choua knew she wanted to obtain a minor in Health Equity at the start of her MPH journey because of her personal experience with health disparities. As an immune-compromised individual with a genetic chronic disorder, Choua has experienced firsthand of how the healthcare she receives is impaired due to the underlying systemic health inequities. She believes in the importance of universal healthcare and culturally appropriate health services, and how the healthcare system should integrate cultural humility into its design. Choua’s academic and career goal is to continue her education and obtain a DrPH in health education while working with communities and schools to develop educational programs around food and nutrition.

In her free time, Choua likes to be in the kitchen cooking, binge-watching TV shows, or going on spontaneous nature walks.

Her professional interests include food insecurity and access, food systems and weight stigma. As an MPH student at the University of Minnesota, she has found a passion for promoting weight-inclusive health care and examining the effects of social factors on health outcomes. Caroline hopes to continue this work following her graduation. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, reading, cooking and exploring the Twin Cities.

Anu worked as a Project Manager for the Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center Internship program at the University of Minnesota, where she collaborated with her team to address an unmet clinical need through innovation and product development. Her research interests include health economics and outcomes, secondary analysis of EHR data, medical device innovation, social determinants of health (SDoH), and child maltreatment.

Anu was drawn to the Health Equity Minor to better understand how social, economic, and environmental factors shape health inequities, explore potential practice and policy solutions for fostering health equity including how to develop and implement effective interventions. She believes that knowing why and how some communities experience disproportionate health inequities, and the roles that the environment, safe housing, race, ethnicity, education, financial status, and access play, will aid in addressing the inequities.

The health equity minor has provided Anu a framework for analyzing the historical

context of inequities and has allowed her to work toward a deeper understanding of the social, economic, environmental, and structural disparities that contribute to intergroup differences in health outcomes both within and between societies. She learned in her coursework that the negative consequences of health inequities extend beyond the individual to their children, communities, and society at large. She intends to break the intergenerational cycle of child abuse and neglect by identifying and addressing the root causes of child maltreatment.

After graduating college in 2018, she spent time as an AmeriCorps VISTA in North Minneapolis working on nutrition access and post-secondary success for youth and took a Global Health in a Local Context course through UMN as a non-degree seeking student. These experiences reinforced the idea that Public Health was the career trajectory for her, so she enrolled in the MPH Epi program.

Throughout her time with SPH, she has worked with COVID-19 equitable data reporting through the BroadStreet COVID-19 Data Project, served as an editor for the Public Health Review, a student run journal intended to decrease barriers to access in publication for nascent authors, conducted research on incentivization of vaccines at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center, and worked as a TA for Epi Methods I and Public Health Ethics.

Annie is certain the health equity lens she’s practiced throughout courses in the health equity minor will be useful as she navigates her research and teaching career. Annie will be pursuing her Ph.D. in Social Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota beginning Fall 2022 and working as a predoctoral fellow with the Research on Eating and Activity for Community Health (REACH) research team. Inspired by liberation educators such as bell hooks and Paulo Freire, Annie ultimately hopes to teach at the undergraduate level, and continue to learn with new generations of justice-oriented public health students.

Alissa was inspired to pursue the Health Equity Minor following personal experiences with family members, volunteer activities, and her interest in community health and wellness projects. Her research projects involve evaluation of food systems based experiential learning projects within the nutrition undergraduate curriculum through partnerships with community and industry. Alissa believes health equity is inherent in her work and is interested in increasing diversity in nutrition professionals through mentorship of high school students.

Alissa hopes to develop multilevel programs to increase access to culturally approachable and affordable foods, promote sustainable meal patterns, and support holistic community wellbeing.

During her time at the UA, Alexis interned at UA Banner Children’s Postinfectious Autoimmune Encephalopathy (CPAE) Center of Excellence, where she completed a capstone project for the clinic; as well as completed an honors thesis through the College of Public Health for the ‘Intense Physiotherapies to Improve Function in Children with Cerebral Palsy” clinical trial at Tucson Medical Center. While earning her MPH in MCH with the UMN online, she worked as the blog editor for the National MCH Trainee Blog, and as a medical scribe. Alexis also participated in some research with the UMN SPH, became a mentor for the MCH Peer Program, pursued an internship with the Eyes On Learning Organization, and was accepted to be an attendee and presenter for the Making Lifelong Connections 2022 Conference.

Alexis has always wanted to pursue a career in health care, ultimately striving to be an empathetic and compassionate caregiver. During her time pursuing her MPH MCH online, she continued involve herself in different opportunities that allowed her to deepen her understanding of the needs for MCH populations and become an advocate for them. Her passion to better understand this population is what led her to pursue the health equity minor which allowed her to get involved with genuine efforts to become informed and help overcome their disparities and inequities. The health equity minor provided her with great teachings and values that contribute to her goals in becoming a health care provider someday and help bridge the gap between medical science and public health.

Prior to pursuing her master’s, Tia worked as a caseworker in South Minneapolis to families in a child protection services prevention program and then as a housing outreach coordinator. During her time working with families, she witnessed the ineffectiveness of current policies meant to help families experiencing poverty and the inequities faced by the population she worked with. The belief that policies would be more effective if the policymakers and those affected by the policy were at the table together, empowering those communities to state what they need to live healthy and fulfilling lives, prompted her to pursue this degree program. She feels that the Health Equity Minor complimented the Civic Engagement program well with the shared goal of preparing students to be strong advocates in improving the quality of life for individuals and communities. Tia hopes to one day be able to provide the table for policymakers and those affected by the policy to gather around.

Outside of school, Tia works as the Executive Assistant to the Dean for the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She loves trying new restaurants, watching movies with her partner, sharing meals with her parents, and spending time with her extended family (she has 11 nieces and nephews!).