Her Story
About Rachael
I've been in the public health field for about 15 years, primarily in research roles within academic settings. My work has focused on research-to-practice connectivity, thinking about how academic settings can partner with people working in health departments, nonprofits, or community-based organizations to measure, evaluate, and support the development of meaningful work to improve health outcomes. I've served in different academic settings at different levels as a research scientist, in different fellowships, and as a project director before serving as an assistant professor, which is my current role for almost 3 years. My days vary quite a bit, which is one of the interesting things about this role. I often spend time either in person or remotely collaborating or speaking with colleagues or partners as we build out study designs and review what's going well or what could be improved. I write up and talk about the purpose and outcomes of work that we are doing to improve public health and different aspects of emergency response to a variety of different audiences. My work involves collaboration, meetings, dissemination, writing, communicating, doing some statistical work, and I also teach classes. I didn't always know this would be my path. Growing up, I honestly didn't know what public health was. I think we learn a lot about healthcare and medicine, but a lot less about public health. It was when I reached college level and started discovering that so much of health is created outside of a healthcare setting, and that research and evaluation measurement is a way to better understand and improve that one aspect of public health, that it kind of coalesced and came together for me. So it definitely took time and was not a linear path.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rachael
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The advice that my mom always gave to me was find something that interests you, that you can develop expertise in, and the specific roles will evolve. I think that's definitely something I took to heart. Just thinking about how the settings can vary, but feeling passionate and connected to the work was always a priority. I find that finding something that keeps you interested is critical. For me, that's having the opportunities to stretch my brain and work with different people and think about challenging problems. But that set of interesting tasks and problems is going to vary for everybody. I think finding something that you are going to want to engage with, even when there's lots of other competing priorities, is critical, and that the specific role or setting that you work in is a name or a title on your business card, but it's really about the type of work you're doing that hopefully engages you.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think that what's worked for me won't necessarily work for other folks, but finding something that keeps you interested is critical. For me, that's having the opportunities to stretch my brain and work with different people and think about challenging problems. But that set of interesting tasks and problems is going to vary for everybody. I think finding something that you are going to want to engage with, even when there's lots of other competing priorities, is critical, and that the specific role or setting that you work in is a name or a title on your business card, but it's really about the type of work you're doing that hopefully engages you. The other thing is, from my perspective, there's no such thing as having it all. There's just what works for you in the moment in time, and you can always reserve the right to change your mind and pivot, and it's never too late to do that. I didn't think I was going to write a book about this particular topic, and it unfolded because it was something that was relevant to my personal life and connected to my professional life, but it wasn't what I was originally planning to do. Preserve the right to change your mind, and recognize that it doesn't have to be everything for you all at once.
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