Ariell Rose DeSure (BS, Public Health 2013) spends 40 to 80 hours a week caring for hundreds of hospitalized patients. She just began her third year at the UW School of Medicine, where she hopes to pursue a career in pediatrics or family medicine.

“I’m excited by the opportunity to build relationships with patients and apply my public health background to direct patient care,” DeSure says.

Jose Carmona (BA, Public Health 2015) grew up working in the orchards of the Yakima Valley picking apples, cherries, peaches and pears. “You name it, I picked it,” Carmona says.

Now he facilitates research and helps promote best health and safety practices for people cut from the same cloth—farmers, fishermen and forestry workers in the Northwest.

Connor Smith made the UW men’s basketball team his senior year as a walk-on. “It’s all about hard work and goal setting,” said Smith. “Life is just too short to not pursue what you want and to do so with total determination.”

Arend Voorman, who received his PhD in Biostatistics in 2014, lined up a job with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation well before graduation. He'll be working with its polio eradication team.

"I am quite excited," says Voorman. "The potential for eradication in the next few years is very motivating." India was recently declared polio-free, he notes, but there have been outbreaks in countries previously declared polio-free, such as Syria and Cameroon.

Onyinye Edeh considers herself “a global citizen who is very passionate about advancing population health.”

Edeh was named the 2016 Institute of Current World Affairs Fellow for her work on girls’ health and empowerment. Edeh, who is originally from Nigeria, plans to focus her two-year ICWA Fellowship on girls’ education and child marriage in her home country.

Nadia Arang (BS, Microbiology, Minor, Global Health 2014) began full-time work at Seattle BioMed just a week after graduating from the UW. She researches how malaria parasites get inside the human liver, where they grow and multiply. "The research has a very clear and direct impact on human life," Arang says. "It's very easy to stay engaged."

Please tell us about your career path so far, starting with your first job after graduation and leading to where you work now.

After completing studies for an MPH in epidemiology (international health track) in August 2013, Vernon Mochache Oyaro returned to his native Kenya to work as a project manager/physician with the International Center for Reproductive Health-Kenya in Mombasa. His new post is giving him project management skills and broadening his horizons.

Why did you join the military?

My family has a history of military service (three brothers, dad, step-dad), and I liked the idea of being able to serve my country. I also needed a way to pay for medical school and this seemed like a great way to do it.

How long did you serve and where?

Rachel Shaffer graduated with a PhD in Environmental Toxicology in 2020. She serves as Senior Advisor for Chemical Safety - Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) - The White House.

Why did you choose the UW?

Andrew Chung works in health care.

Tell me about your path to the military.

I went to school at Purdue University in Indiana. I had friends who joined the military and they told me that, if I was going to go to college, I might as well consider ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). I did, and it was one of the best decisions of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Why did you choose the UW?

The UW and the School of Public Health have a strong commitment to service and to research. I completed my bachelor’s in nursing at the UW, and wanted to return for my graduate education.

Why did you decide to get into health administration?

After losing her father to an incurable disease, PhD student Ceejay Boyce was driven to develop more effective tools and technology to fight diseases. “I wanted to help others avoid that same experience,” Boyce says of her father’s illness.

PhD student Amy Lu is fascinated by the art of discovery – understanding the need and the problem, and probing beyond the obvious answers to find creative solutions.

Erica Lokken graduated from the UW with a PhD in Epidemiology. 

At 14 years old, Erica Lokken spent hours on weekends in a warehouse in Houston’s south side sifting through bags and boxes of donated medical supplies. She counted unused urine cups and bandages, tinkered with prosthetic legs and sorted syringes.