Syreen Goulmamine

I would attribute my success to having amazing role models, my parents, and I'm a big faith person. I'm Muslim, so a lot of the things come back to believing in God and believing that I'm doing the best that I can with what I have.

I think some of the best career advice is close mouths don't get fed. That's the first one. So, if you don't ask, the answer will always be no. And the other one that I heard recently that I've been trying to implement more, which I feel very confident about, is anybody can find a problem. What makes people unique and valuable is them bringing a solution. And so that's kind of how I've been trying to frame my career around that kind of ideology.

I think some advice would be to always be a lifelong learner, and always thinking about building your toolkit. I tell this to everybody, not just women, but specifically women, because I think people sometimes feel trapped in their jobs, or feel like, oh, I'm not getting anything out of this. But I always tell individuals, even if you don't love what you're doing, there is something you can learn from it that you can take with you. And so kind of remembering to keep learning, keep looking for new things, and always building that toolkit for the long term.

I think specifically opportunities in public health is that we work very collaboratively with other groups, with other industries. Some people don't love this, but I firmly believe that health touches everything. And so I think an opportunity in public health is that we get to work with lots of different people, whether that is people in business, or people who do environmental work, or people who specialize in education. And so I think because of that, I've gotten to see a lot of different things, and that's a major opportunity of being in the field. As for challenges, I'm a type 1 diabetic, and so a lot of obstacles I've encountered have been as a result of my health, and that kind of getting in the way of a variety of things. But I've been really lucky to have a lot of support systems that have supported me in moving past those obstacles. But it really brings to highlight that I was lucky to have resources and people help me, so when I see people that don't have that, that's driven a lot of the work I do as well.

I would say integrity, accountability, and dedication. Those are my top 3. They're also things that are pillars that I try to stand by. And in fact, you'd be surprised by the amount of times I actually have had to be in a space where I'm like, oh wait, actually, this is being challenged right now, why is that? So I think those are my priorities.