Peter Rabinowitz grew up loving wildlife and nature. Today he fuses his passion for animals, the environment and human health in a unique project that looks at the health risks we share from interacting in an increasingly crowded world.

Heroin use is on the rise across Washington state, with the most dramatic increase among 18- to 29-year-olds. Caleb Banta-Green tracks these trends and more. Find out what he has to say about heroin, marijuana and the need to change the dialogue around medication use.

Black Lives Matter, hashtag activism, the Oscars, Babel and the legacy of Henrietta Lacks. We talk about all this and more in a new Q&A with Clarence Spigner. Raised in poverty and segregation in South Carolina, Spigner, a Vietnam veteran and three-time U.C. Berkeley alum, draws on real life experiences and popular culture to connect with students in unique courses on race and health.

What motivates you about public health and health services? These fields can systematically improve the health of our diverse communities. There is a great need for culturally-humble health care leaders to develop a more equitable care system that better serves us all.

Why and when did you begin your work on homelessness? I got out of college 29 years ago, and assumed I’d go to law school. But I was looking for something to do in the meantime and selected this region for a service year with Jesuit Volunteer Corps. They asked if I’d be interested in working at a homeless shelter in downtown Seattle. And I said, Sure, why not?

Avi Kenny is a graduate of the UW Biostatistics PhD program, where he worked with Dr. Marco Carone. Previously, he served as the Director of Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation at Last Mile Health.

Why did you choose biostatistics? My interest in patterns and statistics led me to be a math major but I was also driven to help people, and I was involved in a lot of community service projects as an undergrad. While I valued the one-on-one connections I made with people, I thought that I could make a bigger impact if I approached problems on a broader scale. That’s when people started saying to me, “Public Health, that’s the term you need to look for.”

Dempsey was recently named the School’s 2019-20 Magnuson Scholar. He is one of six students from the UW Health Sciences schools who will receive $30,000 each for their education.

What influenced you to pursue your degree in nutrition? My fondness for food and cooking is what led me to nutrition. Since I was seven years old, I have been drawn to the kitchen.

Christopher Kemp is dedicated to the study of implementation. That is, the process of getting interventions and programs that work to the people who need them the most. His main focus over the last four years – defined in part by his experience in the Peace Corps in rural South Africa – has been the integration of mental health care, HIV treatment and other chronic disease services in low-resource settings.

Carrie Dennett runs a virtual private nutrition practice with a body positive philosophy, and she influences thousands of readers a week through her writing for the Seattle Times and other publications. She credits the Nutritional Sciences program at the UW for helping her provide research-validated advice to her clients and readership.

Now, a UW School of Public Health doctoral candidate in epidemiology, Phillip is working to find new ways to help diagnose, treat and prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. His research has expanded what is known about the relationship between dementia and sensory impairment.

Kathleen Nguyen started her career in health information by working at Group Health Cooperative (now Kaiser Permanente) where she and the after-hours nurses were the first line of triage for patients in need of medical attention.