Pandemic Center

What has been your involvement with the Pandemic Center and its team or issues? What's the most important lesson you’ve learned from your involvement with the Pandemic Center?

As Brown’s Newman Civic Fellow, I'm being mentored by Dr. Beth Cameron because of my interest in pandemics, infectious disease, and policy. Through this, I’ve been able to be immersed in a network of pandemic experts and learning opportunities, and am currently working as an intern at the Office of Global Affairs helping efforts in negotiating the Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response accord. As I engage with diverse experts with varied backgrounds through the Pandemic Center, I’ve been able to see how diverse career paths play important roles in the world of pandemics and policy. I’ve learned the criticalness of having an intersectional approach to something that is so multifaceted.

What have been some of your goals, and how will you make a difference as a ‘game changer’?

A big goal of mine has been to try to figure out how I will become the ‘game changer’ I want to be. I know I'm interested in specifically addressing the inequities in healthcare, underlying systems,  and access to pandemic countermeasures that rose to the surface both nationally and globally. Hence, my goal has been to try to figure out what the next steps post-brown looks like, trying to identify what skills I want to further gain and what education might make sense to gain these skills so that I’m capable of being the ‘game changer' I want to be. 

What’s your advice or message to the next class of game changers and pandemic decision makers?

Don’t undermine the interconnectedness of everything and the power of intersectional thinking when it comes to tackling hard problems like pandemics. From the lawyers, scientists, doctors, social scientists, and policy makers, we need everyone on board.