June Alumni Spotlight: Laurel Denyer

Hi fellow Aggies! I’m Laurel Denyer, class of 2021. I found Global Disease Biology out of a desire for the scientific classes I was taking for my original major in Cell Biology to be complemented with a more comprehensive view of how environments impact health. I loved the flexibility of the major, which allowed me to explore classes on vector-borne diseases and climate change, as well as health policy and population health. It also allowed me to enjoy my time as president of a UC Davis dance club team and working as a research assistant in Dr. Falbe’s lab. This experience in research, which GDB thoughtfully encouraged through the capstone, set me up for working in food access and nutrition education at Yolo County’s Department of Health and Human Services, and then graduate school. Still interested in how social, political, natural, and built environments shape health, I earned my Master of City Planning and Master of Public Health in a dual degree program at UC Berkeley. 

During graduate school, I worked at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment within California’s Environmental Protection Agency. I worked on CalEnviroScreen, a geographic-based environmental justice tool which is an important source of data on environmental pollution and socioeconomic factors, and is influential in funding for more sustainable and healthier communities throughout California. Since graduating, I have been working as an urban and regional planner, where I am gaining further exposure into how cities and towns can promote and protect health through local planning policy. I’m passionate about environmental justice and I see my career evolving through government, academia, and other stakeholder work to bring me more experience in the numerous pathways and arms to pull the levers of to impact community health. I attribute this desire to look upstream and across disciplines for proactive public health interventions to my time in the GDB program. I continue to bring this lens to my work beyond my time at UC Davis, which I am forever grateful for. Please feel free to reach out and connect!