Using Data to Protect and Improve Health Around the World

Education

I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Immunology at the University of California, Berkley in 2006. I earned a master’s in public health (MPH) in Epidemiology from Emory University in 2010. While employed at CDC, I earned a Doctor of Public Health degree in Health Policy Analysis in 2021.

Jobs Prior to CDC

Before graduate school, I worked as a Data Manager for the Cooperative Studies Program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

First Job at CDC

In my second year of graduate school (2009), I was hired as a student worker at CDC in the global health program. When I started at Emory, I was not very familiar with CDC but applied there for a new work experience; I had not decided that I wanted to make a career at CDC. Almost immediately I discovered that the work was so incredible that I began looking for how I could stay. After completing my MPH, the global health program kept me on as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow, and in 2012 I became a federal employee.

Throughout my 9 years in global health (2009-2018) the unit I worked in was focused on international emergency response and refugee health. Our branch was heavily involved in responding to the earthquake in Haiti and famine in the Horn of Africa. I was an epidemiologist, so I was analyzing data on detection, distribution, and causes of diseases that followed these natural disasters, outbreaks or conflicts. We were focused on providing data for the immediate life-saving aspects of these emergency responses.

Our branch also did some non-emergency research projects. For example, I traveled to West Africa for a child health project. I also traveled to the Philippines for a hurricane response.

Final Job at CDC

I enjoyed my epidemiology and surveillance support position, but I wanted to be able to do more science and public health implementation, so I changed to a health scientist position in the center for injury prevention and control in 2020. There I was on the Implementation Team, primarily implementing countrywide surveys on violence against children. These surveys were conducted primarily in countries in Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa, at the request of the country’s government. The surveys were conducted in-person, by local interviewers, and we provided training, monitoring, and data analysis. In addition to this international work, I was the implementation lead for our first domestic survey, conducted in Baltimore, Maryland.

Impact of My Work

I was really struck by how impactful the violence surveys were. After getting results from the data, countries would understand better the factors contributing to violence against children and youth in their country, and they would put together a national action plan to reduce that violence. In some cases, we were able to go back and conduct another survey to measure changes after the country had implemented their action plan. Although we could not do randomized controlled studies, in our repeat surveys we were able to document decreases, (sometimes large decreases) in violence in those countries.

Proudest Achievement

Across my various positions and projects, the through-line was providing the data and finding ways to improve the public’s health—from encouraging a small rural health clinic to put a poster on the wall with disease case definitions, to creating or evaluating multiple nationwide surveillance systems, and to reducing violence against children across a whole country. Every day, and in every project, I’d see myself and my co-workers never stop finding ways to improve health.

Leaving CDC

When the Trump administration came in, we were worried about our ability to continue our work. We were focused on violence prevention, working globally, and our work intersected with gender and sexuality. We also worked with USAID. We knew there was going to be some turmoil and changes. On April 1, 2025, almost the entire branch received reduction in force (RIF) notices. Initially we were given 2 months of administrative leave; later our separation date was delayed by court cases. Eventually the court case was narrowed, and my colleagues and I were all separated in September 2025.

Now that most of our branch is gone, the loss is incalculable. There was a fully functioning branch that was making huge strides to decrease violence against children globally and in the US. There was a huge amount of expertise and decades of experience from hard-working, dedicated, intelligent staff, and there has been very little effort to preserve that. We have lost the skillset and capability to try to understand and intervene in violence against children. This skill set is lost at CDC and will be lost outside of CDC since CDC will not be able to provide technical assistance to others.

Future Plans

I am now working in a position like my second position at CDC. I am working for a company that owns a large complex data repository and our clients either access the dataset to do their own analyses, or contract with us to do the analyses.

I am thankful for the people who have remained at CDC and are trying to preserve what is still there. Hopefully the people still there and those separated that want to return will be part of the effort to reconstitute CDC in the future. Now having a great job that I am excited about makes it unlikely that I would return in the near or medium term.

Other Comments

I think the American public is unaware of how diverse CDC’s work was. Most people were aware of CDC’s work on contaminated food products for example, but are not aware that CDC was working to improve every component of health: infectious disease, chronic disease, violence, mental health, and everything in between. CDC was working in the US and globally, and at home, in the hospital, and in the community. CDC was helping Americans every day; in ways the public knows about and in many ways they do not know about.

There have been many positives of my time at CDC, and I am thankful I was able to work there for as long as I did. Partners and affected people were thankful we were helping them. I have made good friends and seen parts of the world I would not have seen otherwise. CDC has been a wonderful place to work. We were well regarded by the American people, and employee satisfaction was very high. Hopefully, it will eventually come back to that.