From the president
Jiseon (Alice) Im is a Junior at Brown University and an engaged leader passionate about addressing the Social Determinants of Health and the gap between scientific knowledge and society, especially in a public health context. For the last three years, she has worked with local education nonprofits to address education as a social determinant of health by providing college mentorship for first-generation, low-income students and by working with numerous local education stakeholders to create knowledge banks and advocate important educational causes such as identifying equitable indicators for students. She has also strived to address these issues at a higher level through research and policy as an Annenberg Research Fellow and as an intern at the Science and Society division at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (WHOSTP). As she starts her internship with the Department of Health and Human Services this semester, she hopes to continue learning how to influence the Social Determinants of Health through policy while continuing to build on her work to center equity in education, public health, and scientific knowledge dissemination.
Personal Statement
From my own experiences growing up, I entered Brown with a passion for health inequities. On campus, I gravitated towards studying it through a Social Determinants of Health lens because of my desire to address the root causes. Out of the six determinants, I developed a specific interest in education because of my experiences as a first-generation student. Hence, I started researching parent engagement, interning at CYCLE, and using classes to find an intersection between education and public health. It wasn’t until my trip to Mississippi with the Bonner Fellows that I realized research and direct community work were only half the battle. Being there, I saw how history marked the present through the perpetuation of the inequities from the past. But I also met change-makers who worked relentlessly to change the trajectory history set for their communities. From town halls to policies, and legislation, the biggest driver of progress was the democratic process. Desiring to better understand the world of policy, I spent a semester interning at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. I leave with a wealth of inspiration to continue addressing the inequities surrounding health through a collaboration of community-engaged work, research, and policy.