Member Insight – Jessica Agnew-Blais

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist?
I have always been interested in mental health, but more as a public health issue than from the perspective of a clinician, so psychiatric epidemiology was the perfect way to pursue this interest. I like thinking about how different factors influence our mental health and resilience across the life course, generations and social contexts, and epidemiology is a great way to look at this.

What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years?
I think the pandemic highlighted the challenge of distrust of science and the ease with which misinformation can spread and affect people’s behaviour. For example, the fact that there is measle outbreak in London, where I live, points to this issue. It’s quite discouraging and a huge challenge that epidemiologists and scientists more broadly will need to tackle.

Do you have any pets?
I have a 13-year old black Labrador named Higgy (full name Higgs Boson).

Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back?
I joined originally SER when I was a student to attend the annual meeting. What keeps me coming back are all of the excellent resources available from the SER website and the sense of shared community with the other members. I currently work in a Psychology Department, so SER is a great way to stay connected to the epidemiology community.

What advice do you give students who want to become epidemiologists?
I think epidemiology is an amazing area of study that can be applied to a really wide range of fields. The logic of causal inference and study design is relevant to so many different subjects. I think getting a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of epidemiology will be incredibly useful in whatever field your career takes you.

Outside of epidemiology what do you enjoy doing?
Living in London, I really enjoy being able to attend various theatre productions, and also being able to travel to Europe pretty easily and explore new places.

What is something that not many people know about you?
I played the Bassoon growing up. This is relevant to my adult life when there is classical music playing with an audible bassoon part and I shout at my kids “DO YOU HEAR THE BASSOON!?!?”