Sydney Shibuya

I'm an Associate Program Manager at the American Heart Association, based in Hawaii, where I've been working for 4 years. I originally started part-time in grad school working on food security and hypertension, and I fell in love with the work. Now I focus on stroke prevention and creating translation materials to support our communities here in Hawaii. As the program manager for our grant, my day involves talking with our team on the national level, our local team at the Hawaii level, and working with outside partners to make sure our campaign goes well. I actually started in nursing school and made it through my junior year before COVID happened. I realized that I could do more behind a desk and in the field rather than working 12-hour shifts, so I switched to public health. I graduated in 2020 and completed grad school in 2024. I even came back to my college and was a professor for a semester, teaching an Intro to Public Health class, where I got to teach nursing students and public health students. That experience confirmed I made the right decision. My goal living here in Hawaii is to broaden people's horizons on what public health is, especially since it's something that's slowly getting tapped into after COVID.