The winners of the 2013 Gilbert S. Omenn Awards for Academic Excellence share a common mission: improving the health of those most at risk. Claire Allen (MPH, Health Services '13) and Vanessa Galaviz (PhD, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences '13) won the Omenn awards— named for the School's former dean—which annually recognize a master's level and a PhD student for their outstanding scholarship and commitment to public health.
Claire Allen (MPH) and Vanessa Galaviz (PhD)
Photo: Elizabeth Sharpe
Allen, now a research coordinator with the School's Health Promotion Research Center, is fluent in Spanish and has worked with a variety of groups, including Latino immigrants, cancer patients and homeless adolescents. She began an organization to improve the experience of graduate students and served as associate director of Salud Juntos, an NGO focused on improving health in Nicaragua and Honduras.
Allen is currently working on a state-level evaluation, writing a manuscript and implementing a wellness program in small businesses for a large randomized control trial. "The MPH prepared me for all of this," Allen says. "However, the most invaluable things I got from the MPH program are a job that I love, where I work with a like-minded team that strives to improve health for people who are most at risk, and a network of friends, who share a similar mission."
Galaviz researched human exposures to chemical and physical agents in the environment, such as diesel exhaust. After graduation, she worked in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences as a senior fellow before accepting a position as scientific adviser to the Assistant Secretary General for Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs at the California Environmental Protection Agency. Besides making policy recommendations, her duties include identifying exposures of concern and communities at risk.
"My advanced training in exposure health sciences has given me the opportunity to give back to my community," says Galaviz, who mentored undergraduate and high school students and volunteered for many outreach activities while at the UW. "My education has given me more than I expected. It has given me the passion to minimize both environmental public health and educational disparities in support of my view that everyone deserves equal opportunity for health and educational success despite socioeconomic barriers."