My name is Meaghan Woody and I graduated with the GDB major in Fall 2018 after transferring from Santa Rosa Junior College. Currently, I am a first-year PhD student in Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. My pathway to PhD was not linear and I am so glad GDB exposed me to many diverse fields of research. The unique and multidisciplinary curriculum of GDB allowed me to connect with people from plant pathology and public health, which grew my network of mentors, colleagues, and friends.

Shortly after transferring, I began working in Dr. Rizzo’s lab, where I got the experience of a wet lab, making a research poster for the URC, and completing my practicum. My GDB electives were in plant pathology and public health and I was interested in both. In Summer 2018, I participated in the UCEAP program in Thailand studying Border Health on the Thai-Myanmar border. During this summer, I got to listen to a series of seminars on migration and health and perform ethnographic research with local communities. This program solidified my decision to pursue public health in grad school and immigrant health is one of my main research interests today. While applying for my MPH, the GDB and SPH advisors and professors, along with the Pre-Grad Advising and ICC (*note from GDB advising: ICC is now called the Career Center) were all extremely helpful. I got my Master in Public Health in Global Epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, amidst the Covid pandemic in 2019-2021. During my time at Emory, I was part of projects in HIV, Covid, and Maternal and Child Health through academia, state government, and the CDC. Diversifying myself in many projects through different subjects and institutions greatly helped me decide where I belong and ultimately led me back to school to start my PhD at UCLA.

Want to learn more about Meaghan's experience? Email Meaghan at: mwoody4@g.ucla.edu