Our alumni have gone on to pursue degrees in International Health, Nutrition, and other fields. Keep checking back for their stories!
An update on the Co-Founder of CHI, Alisa Mo (class of 2008):
Alisa Mo graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a double major in biology and mathematics. At Cornell Alisa did research in cardiac electrophysiology, worked as a writing tutor for the Writing Walk-In Center, and was involved in several community service organizations.
Alisa felt that there was an unmet need at Cornell for a student organization that could engage students in community service at a global level and increase local discussion and awareness of global health issues. Along with Julia Tian, Alisa cofounded Cornell Health International in 2006 and later became marketing director. As marketing director, Alisa worked to promote CHI events and to increase the visibility of CHI among students and professors. Alisa also became a member of the student advisory board for the new global health concentration.
Alisa is currently pursuing a combined MD/PhD (MSTP) degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is passionate about pure basic science research (science for science’s sake!) yet believes firmly that one goal of research must be to help humanity. In her future career, she looks forward to combining clinical work with basic science lab research in neuroscience. Alisa greatly values the experiences and skills she gained through working in CHI and also hopes to incorporate a global health component in her research or clinical work.
An update on the Co-Founder of the Salubrion, Larissa Eltsefon (class of 2009):
Larissa Eltsefon graduated from Cornell in 2009 with a bachelor of arts in Government and Classics. Along with Kristen Aufiero, Larissa attended the very first CHI meeting (ever). One year later, Kristen and Larissa released CHI’s first issue of The Salubrion. They wanted the journal to present global health in the context of politics, economics, culture, and ethics, so as to make global health an issue accessible to a wide range of Cornell students. Along with The Salubrion, Larissa was involved with the Amnesty International club, which has been a long-standing partner of CHI.
Upon graduating cum laude from Cornell, Larissa worked as an editorial assistant at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, where she was responsible for editing all Kennan publications and writing summaries of Kennan events, which included talks on public health in Russia and Central Asia. Larissa is currently a student at Columbia Law School and hopes to pursue public international law, which includes human rights, refugee rights, laws of war, and global health.
An update on the former Executive Director, Lindsay Jaacks (class of 2010):
Lindsay is currently a doctoral student in Nutritional Epidemiology at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC, Chapel Hill. The Gillings School is ranked second for best public health graduate schools according the the US News World Report. Lindsay’s current research is focused on overweight/obesity and cardiometabolic risk in a longitudinal cohort in China and on the association between migration to the U.S. and the development of diabetes. In the long-term, she hopes to look at the reciprocal relationship between chronic and infectious disease (non-communicable and communicable disease; for example, there are proposed links between diabetes and increased susceptibility to TB and people with HIV/AIDS are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease at lower BMIs due to deposition of visceral adiposity, high LDLs, etc.). She is also interested in the double burden (over- and undernutrition co-existing within developing countries and in some cases, within households). While at Cornell Lindsay conducted research with Dr. Kimberly O’Brien in the Department of Nutrition Sciences on iron transport across the placenta and iron status in pregnant adolescents. She was also a student adviser for Biological Sciences majors and a former executive director of CHI. She is more than willing to answer any questions CHI members may have on getting involved with research at Cornell and applying to public health schools. Lindsay received offers from Harvard, Hopkins, Emory, and UNC’s schools of public health and thoroughly evaluated each of these schools and would be happy to discuss the pros and cons of each. Lindsay Jaacks may be contacted at jaacks@email.unc.edu.
An update on Lauren Trakimas:
Lauren Trakimas graduated from Human Ecology in 2007 with B.S. in Human Biology, Health, and Society, and a minor in International Relations through the Einaudi Center. While at Cornell, Lauren was involved in CHI, PATCH, and was on the student advisory board for the new minor in Global Health. She is now at Columbia University studying for her Master’s Degree in Molecular Nutrition at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia Medical Center. Recently, she received a “Women’s Health and HIV Fellowship” from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health to go to Rwanda this September and October to work in nutrition and HIV and evaluate some current WFP programs that are going on there that are supported through Columbia ICAP. She hopes to bring her training and interests in basic science and public health to a career in preventive medicine. Lauren encourages all CHI members to think big and explore the economic, development, and ethical issues intricately involved in healthcare disparities. If you have any questions about her graduate program or her career interests and goals, please email her at LET2112[at]columbia[dot]edu. All the best!
An update on Prabu Selvam:
Hey! My name is Prabu, and I graduated from Cornell in 2007. During my sophomore year at Cornell, I became really interested in pursuing a career in international health. As a student in the college of engineering, I felt like medicine and public health were a world away, so you can imagine how happy I was when I learned that a few enthusiastic students had created a group called Cornell Health International. I started attending some CHI events and eventually realized that I could learn a lot more from being more actively involved in the organization. For me, this meant becoming the project board director during the fall of 2006. I met amazing people who were super smart and were equally passionate about serving the less fortunate. Working with the project board, I learned a great deal about cooperating successfully with peers, about general health issues and concerns in different countries, the art of calling (and pestering) health service organizations and writing up budgets and grants for projects. We had some difficulty getting projects off the ground with limited resources, but as we came to the close of the spring 2007 semester, it was clear that CHI was moving in the right direction, with increased student interest and greater visibility with professors working in the global health arena.
I went on to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for my masters degree in Global Disease Epidemiology, and that is where I am now. I’m really enjoying my time here at Hopkins so far and I would recommend public health grad school to those who are interested. But remember that getting a public health degree is by no means the only option, it’s just one way of getting involved in this field. There are many career paths that can also have a profound impact on public health such as law, finance, medicine, psychology, anthropology…you name it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a science person, a business person, an engineer or a musician, because Public Health is about improving life in the most general sense, and any skills you have can be useful.
I’m proud of all that you guys have accomplished so far this year and I encourage you to keep up the great work, especially so that I can continue bragging about you guys to my grad school friends!
…more coming soon!
