What influenced you to pursue a degree in nutritional sciences? Pursuing health through food and nutrition has always played a pretty big role in my life and throughout my career, I have had different opportunities to provide nutrition education and promote sustainable agriculture.

What interested you in studying nutritional sciences? I come from a country which is currently facing the triple burden of malnutrition – the coexistence of undernutrition, obesity, and micronutrient deficiencies. This nutrition crisis affects the most underserved populations and is common in low- and middle-income countries.

What motivates you to do this work? The problems in public health and medicine that I work on and the people who I work with keep me motivated. My collaborators open my eyes to pressing problems, and it's fun to be part of the solution through biostatistics.

Jeffrey Leek is an innovative data scientist and educator whose work has had far-reaching impacts on molecular biology, cancer research and neuroscience. His lab seeks to understand variation in human gene expression and how it relates to normal development and disease.

When Maggie Ramirez joined the engineering research labs as an undergraduate at the University of Washington, she fell in love with the research process, studying and learning alongside her professors. From that moment, she knew exactly what she wanted to be in life: a professor at the UW.

What drew you to the Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health Major? At Seattle Central, I loved nutrition, anatomy, wellness, and fitness classes and developed a deeper understanding of how applying all of these can help us to be healthy.

I was inspired to join the Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health Major because I knew I wanted to focus on the health and wellness of people in whatever future career path I decided.

In a Q&A, undergraduate Rohini Achal, '24, reflects on their passion for health equity and how structural oppression lies at the root of inequities.

Olivia Brandon wins UW President's Medal. Her interests in health care swing from micro to macro.

There’s a line Brittney Dias wrote that’s been serving as inspiration for herself and the children she writes for: “No matter the time, no matter the day, Ava and Mae find a way.”

Tina Mensa-Kwao is a firm believer in the principle, “nothing about us without us” because she recognizes the importance of community members as essential collaborators in improving the quality of mental health services in a community, particularly for underserved youth.

Creates culture of community health

What interested you in studying public health and why are you passionate about it? I had a wonderful mentor in the nursing school at the University of Wisconsin named Dr. McGranahan, and she explained to our class the impact public health can have on nursing-focused outcomes. As a registered nurse, I am interested in public health because it takes a broader approach to populations and their interactions with behavior, the environment and systems.

Belen Salguero, an environmental health major in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS), interned with the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment last summer through the National Environmental Public Health Internship Program.