Alumni

Our alumni have gone on to pursue degrees in International Health, Nutrition, and other fields. Keep checking back for their stories!

» Lauren Trakimas

Lauren Trakimas graduated from Human Ecology in 2007 with B.S. in Human Biology, Health, and Society, and a minor in International Relations through the Einaudi Center. While at Cornell, Lauren was involved in CHI, PATCH, and was on the student advisory board for the new minor in Global Health. She is now at Columbia University studying for her Master’s Degree in Molecular Nutrition at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia Medical Center. Recently, she received a “Women’s Health and HIV Fellowship” from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health to go to Rwanda this September and October to work in nutrition and HIV and evaluate some current WFP programs that are going on there that are supported through Columbia ICAP. She hopes to bring her training and interests in basic science and public health to a career in preventive medicine. Lauren encourages all CHI members to think big and explore the economic, development, and ethical issues intricately involved in healthcare disparities. If you have any questions about her graduate program or her career interests and goals, please email her at LET2112[at]columbia[dot]edu. All the best!

» Prabu Selvam

Hey! My name is Prabu, and I graduated from Cornell in 2007. During my sophomore year at Cornell, I became really interested in pursuing a career in international health. As a student in the college of engineering, I felt like medicine and public health were a world away, so you can imagine how happy I was when I learned that a few enthusiastic students had created a group called Cornell Health International. I started attending some CHI events and eventually realized that I could learn a lot more from being more actively involved in the organization. For me, this meant becoming the project board director during the fall of 2006. I met amazing people who were super smart and were equally passionate about serving the less fortunate. Working with the project board, I learned a great deal about cooperating successfully with peers, about general health issues and concerns in different countries, the art of calling (and pestering) health service organizations and writing up budgets and grants for projects. We had some difficulty getting projects off the ground with limited resources, but as we came to the close of the spring 2007 semester, it was clear that CHI was moving in the right direction, with increased student interest and greater visibility with professors working in the global health arena.

I went on to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for my masters degree in Global Disease Epidemiology, and that is where I am now. I’m really enjoying my time here at Hopkins so far and I would recommend public health grad school to those who are interested. But remember that getting a public health degree is by no means the only option, it’s just one way of getting involved in this field. There are many career paths that can also have a profound impact on public health such as law, finance, medicine, psychology, anthropology…you name it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a science person, a business person, an engineer or a musician, because Public Health is about improving life in the most general sense, and any skills you have can be useful.

I’m proud of all that you guys have accomplished so far this year and I encourage you to keep up the great work, especially so that I can continue bragging about you guys to my grad school friends!