Member Insight

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist?

In college I was an international relations major. In thinking about how to spur economic development in low and middle income countries, it became clear that a healthy population was a precursor to any economic development. So I started looking into public health programs. At the time not every school had a global health program (it was the mid-90’s). The University of Michigan did and it was housed in the epidemiology department, so I sort of fell into it by accident. And I am glad I did! And the funny thing is, I haven’t done any global health work in over 20 years.

What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years?

A big concern for public health as a whole is public trust. It has been really disturbing to see how the COVID pandemic has eroded the public’s trust in previously trustworthy institutions. It will take a while to build it back. And even then we won’t reach the whole population. The segment of the population that has alternative beliefs will make it harder to protect population health.

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist?

I gravitated towards science as an undergraduate because I enjoyed devising studies to test my ideas about how the natural world worked. However, I found that doing biological research did not connect as closely as I would have liked to the topics that were most important to me. I grew up in Baltimore, a city facing severe problems with racial segregation, poverty, violence, and substance use. I was motivated to better understand how Baltimore and many other US cities had developed into these sorts of situations, and how these conditions were impacting the people who lived there. During my senior year, to satisfy a statistics requirement for my biology major, my advisor Anne Fausto-Sterling recommended that I take something called “epidemiology”. I truly had no idea what it was. Sally Zierler taught the introductory epidemiology course at Brown at that time, and many of the example studies in the course related to social determinants of health. This was an eye-opening experience because it revealed that the scientific method that had drawn me to biology could be applied to the social issues that I was motivated to better understand. I quickly shifted from marine biology and oceanography to epidemiology and public health when planning for next steps after graduation. That is how I ended up on the path to epidemiology.

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? The research work of Professor Dr. Miguel Hernán. How long have you been a member of SER?  Since 2017. What role do you have in SER? I am a member of the SER Membership and Nominations Committee, co-chaired by Erin A. Bowles and Whitney Robinson.  I am also the lead of the Subcommittee – Masters and Non-academia. Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back? I was looking for a professional society in Epidemiology, and was told by colleagues that SER was the premier society for Epidemiologic Research.  They were correct! Initially, I was excited to take full advantage of the membership resources.  I watched every single Causal Inference/Methods webinar taught by the experts, and kept notebooks just for this purpose.  It was wonderful to be able to add to my knowledge base, as a benefit of my membership.  I am confident that I sent quite a few emails to Courtney Long thanking her after every webinar! Attending the annual meeting in 2019 was so worthwhile.  I drank several cups of coffee a day there so as not to miss one of the great Methods workshops/sessions.  The most challenging part […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? I was a junior at Harvey Mudd College and Dr. Sally Blower came and gave a school-wide lecture about her work mathematically modeling HIV in South Africa. It was the first moment I understood that I could use my mathematics degree to contribute to improving people’s health. I emailed her and she suggested I look into programs in epidemiology for graduate school. What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years? I think that epidemiologists will have to deal with structural determinants of health in meaningful and intentional ways. While, I think, the discipline has been documenting the impact of various social determinants of health there is more work to be done in developing tools, methods, and interventions that directly address structural health determinants. I also think this will be made easier if we have a more diverse group of epidemiologists thinking and working through these issues. Do you have any pets? I don’t have any pets, but I do have many houseplants that I care about deeply! I’ve even named some of them! Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back? I joined […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? When I was a kid growing up in the poorest neighborhoods of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, it was always on my mind and heart that I wanted to do something to help people in need. For some reason, the idea to help was related to the health or the well-being of people in need. Then, my parents moved my brothers and I to El Paso, TX, and my science courses in high school and college helped me confirm the possibility that I could actually make this difference in people’s lives related to their health. However, when I was in college I spent several days by myself in the lab sacrificing rats for my thesis project, and I told my thesis advisor that I realized that I was not very excited about laboratory work. I was more interested in doing something more specific for the benefit of people. She asked me if I had heard about epidemiology. I replied no and asked what it was. She recommended to look for it on the internet and I did. Everything I read about it was a perfect fit for me. Many years passed after that initial […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? I became interested in contradictions of medical findings in my work as a clinician. My chief physician at the time explained to me that what interested me was called clinical epidemiology. I therefore turned to a professor of epidemiology who recommended that I study epidemiology. That’s what I did in Boston. What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years? It is difficult to keep pace with the many new developments in epidemiology (causal inference), biostatistics, and the emerging new disciplines (data science, machine learning, medical informatics). Do you have any pets? No. Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back? I joined SER because SER unites the most methodically interesting epidemiologists under one roof. The SER meeting is my most important annual training in epidemiology. What advice do you give students who want to become epidemiologists? Students are right in epidemiology if they have a strong interest in the methods of epidemiology and in the public health significance of epidemiology. Outside of epidemiology what do you enjoy doing? I love to play saxophone and piano, and love reading books about general history. What […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? I was a hospital laboratory technologist for many years and I loved my work (most days). The clinical lab introduced me to the concept of social and behavioral sciences as I saw the revolving door of clients into the STD clinic as they were diagnosed, treated, and cured, only to eventually return to the clinic with a new infection.  This pattern made me curious about the “causes” which were at work.  It was through this experience that I learned about epidemiology, and ultimately, social epidemiology. What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years? Obtaining funding for research. Do you have any pets? Yes, Bosco the beagle. He is 13 years young and leads a life of which I am completely envious. Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back? SER has always been a great opportunity to learn new methods and reinforce current research practices. Over the years I have met so many smart and wonderful people at SER; some I am now fortunate to work with at BU and to collaborate across institutions. Each year I look forward to time away from […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? During my undergrad, I studied biological anthropology, women’s health and nutrition. This led me to a master’s program in population and international health, which ended up being more focused on policy than physiology and health science than I’d hoped. I discovered epidemiology in my first semester of graduate school, fell in love with it, and switched programs. I did my doctoral work in epidemiology and nutrition, focusing on ovarian cancer, which ended up being the perfect way to blend these interests. What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years? Funding! We all know it’s harder and harder to get grants in today’s climate. Also, it often feels like many of the ‘big’ etiologic questions have been answered already. Intervention research promoting behavioral change seems increasingly important. Do you have any pets? Yes, 2 pugs and 3 cats. My kids are also trying to convince us to adopt a retired sled dog. Why did you join SER? What keeps you coming back? I started attending SER meetings 20 years ago as a doctoral student, and found them so exciting. The variation in research presented, both in […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? In the early years of my PhD study, I was a research assistant doing data collection in the field for a formative research study as part of the National Children’s Study. One day during the study interview, the mother of a 4-year old who was born preterm expressed her great anxiety and concern regarding her son’s health and development because she was once told by others her son might fall behind his peers. She was desperate to know more about the potential adverse impact of preterm birth and approaches to mitigating such risk. That moment certainly sparkled my interest in learning more about developmental origins of disease and life course epidemiology. What kind of research are you doing and why do you think it’s important? My overarching research interests center on the DOHaD hypothesis and identifying potentially modifiable early life factors to improve women’s reproductive outcomes and offspring health outcomes throughout the life span. In particular, nutritional and environmental perturbations during pregnancy has been linked to fetal development and obesity risk in later life. Therefore, it is of great clinical and public health significance to identify modifiable intrauterine factors which may potentially […]

What sparked your decision to become an epidemiologist? To be perfectly honest I didn’t know much about epidemiology and biostatistics until I started graduate school. Like many in our field, I initially thought I wanted to be a medical doctor. I was intending to get an MPH and move on to medical school. But in my first epi class, I was immediately impressed that there was an entire field devoted to the science of improving population health. I realized early on that this was the career for me, and after getting my MPH went on to earn my MS in biostatistics and PhD in epidemiology. Now I work as a clinical epidemiologist and biostatistician (or health care data scientist as it’s being called here in San Francisco where I live) using large scale national electronic health data answering questions about health care delivery and quality and population health. What do you see as the biggest obstacle facing epidemiologists in the next five years? I think traditional epidemiologic studies we learned about in graduate school are becoming increasingly challenging to fund and maintain. However, there are exciting opportunities for epidemiologists in the era of big data. As data sources continue to […]