As a doctoral student, I view my SER membership as a key component of my training because it exposes me to a variety of topics, insights, and conjectures in epidemiology to which I otherwise might not have been exposed. Every year, I look forward to attending the SER meeting because it is one of the best opportunities to network with epidemiologists from all over the world and discuss on a more personal level the issues that the field is currently facing. I also am quite grateful for the resources that the SER Student & Post-Doc Committee provides. A surprising number of professional organizations do not have a separate board composed of students and post-docs, which I believe is unfortunate. Even in the brief time that I have been a member of SER, the SER-SPC has provided me with invaluable resources, and I am excited for the opportunity to become more involved with the SER-SPC.
My undergraduate training was in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and my desire to study neurological and psychiatric disease at a population level led me to the field of psychiatric epidemiology. I am currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), as well as a concurrent Master’s degree in the Department of Biostatistics at JHSPH. Currently, my research is focused on the development of possible public health interventions to delay the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Within the Department of Mental Health, I serve as the President of the JHSPH Mental Health Student Association, which has a mission similar to that of the SER-SPC in that it aims to support the educational and professional development of Mental Health students through a number of seminars and networking opportunities.
I believe I have the qualifications and experience required to be a successful Internal Affairs Chair. As President of the JHSPH Mental Health Association, I oversee all operations of the group, including the distribution of meeting minutes and all financial transactions. I also must regularly communicate with faculty, students, and staff in many different departments across JHSPH. Outside of the Mental Health Association, I also serve as Secretary of the MIT Beta Corporation, which is a board of MIT alumni volunteers that provides mentorship and guidance to current MIT students. In this role, I record and send the minutes of all Beta Corporation meetings to all of its members, and I am also responsible for maintaining and archiving any correspondence (postal mail, e-mail, etc.) of the organization. I believe the skills that I have learned and developed in these roles are quite relevant to the position of Internal Affairs Chair. If elected, it would be an honor and privilege to serve an organization that I feel is so essential for epidemiologists worldwide.
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