Her Story
About Amy
I've been working in public health for about 9 years now, with 8 years as an epidemiologist. As a disease detective, my job is to figure out where diseases are coming from, where they're going, and how we can prevent the spread in our communities. I oversee over 80 diseases for our community, everything from measles, monkeypox, Ebola, bird flu, and of course COVID-19 that everyone knows from the pandemic. My key responsibilities focus on disease prevention and trying to prevent the spread of outbreaks in the community. What I find most fulfilling about this work is being able to serve within the community that I was born and raised in, to be able to prevent those illnesses within my community, within the families that I live with here. In public health, it's really about getting down to why people are getting sick, how they can prevent getting sick, so there's a lot of education and awareness. I personally feel a lot of fulfillment in being able to educate people, help them understand how they can navigate their life living with these diseases, and how they can prevent them in the future. I now serve as the supervisor for our epidemiology team here, continuing in the footsteps of my mentor Dr. Steven Hinojosa, who pushed me to pursue my master's program and taught me a lot along the way.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amy
01What do you attribute your success to?
I guess my parents. I'm a first-generation graduate student, or just graduate in general, so they would always just push me to succeed. I come from a Hispanic background, so it was just kind of this thing that they were fighting for a better life for me. They worked in the farms and the fields, so it was just kind of always this thing where, like, hey, we're working hard so that you can go and get an education and do good for yourself in the world.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice is just, you know, you're never going to reach the top. You're gonna continuously keep growing and keep learning, so just remaining humble and knowing that even when you think you've made it to the top, there's still more to learn and grow at any age or any stage of your career.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Not to be afraid of failure. I personally failed a class during my undergrad, and I have been able to overcome that, and where I'm at now, no one would ever think that. So just being okay with making mistakes, with not succeeding, and just knowing that we have to get up and keep trying and make a different name for ourselves. Our failures do not define us. It's really the comeback that we're able to do that helps shape who we are as women in any career path.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think some of the biggest challenges is there's always going to be a new disease or new virus spreading, so we're constantly having to adapt to those new changes, those new threats to the public, and trying to educate people on what they need to do to stay safe.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I don't know if this counts as a value, but I think being empathetic with everyone, because we can always be in their shoes, being truthful, being held accountable to myself and to the people I serve. I think accountability's probably the biggest one there. And then just being humble, because there's always more to learn.
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