Pooja Manjunath

I'm from Canada, where I completed my undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry. Initially, I wanted to go to med school, and that was kind of my initial path, but I realized I wanted to prioritize more community work than the med school process. One of my advisors wanted me to look into public health, so I kind of looked into it and fell in love with the field. I applied to different programs, got into the University of Washington, and moved to Seattle two years ago. That's how I started my journey in public health. Previously, I did a lot of community-based work. I worked with the Immigration Services of Calgary, and I helped co-found an organization called the Future Graduates Alliance. I was also an executive for another student club called Women in Science and Technology, where we helped guide students throughout the science field and put on different events. I volunteered with Alberta Health Services Rockview General Hospital as a patient experience volunteer, where I would go room to room to different patients and help them with basic daily support, whether that's taking them on walks around the hospital or other tasks. I also volunteered with the Oregon Food Bank when I lived in Oregon during high school. Right now, I'm concentrating in health policy work, definitely at the intersection between health policy and community-based work. For my capstone project, I'm working with an organization called the Community Health Plan of Washington and an immigration coalition. My work consists of interviewing different community-based organizations and community health centers to get their perspective on what immigrant community needs are, and using those insights to create internal recommendations for how they can create future priorities for their organization.