July 21, 2023 – Growing up, Shana Grant knew she wanted to pursue a health-related career, so she set her sights on the path she knew best: becoming a doctor. But once in college, she found the idea of practicing medicine didn’t sit well with her.
“I just didn’t know how to express my interest in health and improving health equity without being a doctor,” Grant said. Then, during a casual conversation one day, someone suggested that public health might do the trick. She remembers thinking at the time, “I’ve literally never heard that before.”
To learn more about the field, Grant, a rising senior at Spelman College, applied to the Fostering Advancement & Careers through Enrichment Training in Science (FACETS) summer program at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Run by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion since 2014, the six-week program provides junior and senior undergraduate students from underrepresented groups across the country with a mix of interdisciplinary coursework, practical research, and professional development in public health.
Erica Knight, director of FACETS, noted that historically, black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges and universities often don’t offer a specialization in public health, and that’s where FACETS comes in. “The primary goal of the program as a whole is to diversify the pipeline for public health professionals and practitioners,” she said.
Do research, prepare for graduate studies
FACETS courses highlight the interdisciplinary nature of public health, covering topics ranging from environmental health to social and behavioral sciences to global health and biostatistics.
In addition to taking courses, students conduct research under the mentorship of Harvard Chan faculty and researchers and present their projects at a symposium at the end of the program. The research projects undertaken by the nine students in this year’s cohort have focused on health disparities, addressing topics such as the prevalence of toxic metals in Black women’s personal care products, the barriers undocumented immigrants face in accessing health care, and the impact of meditation on stress and cardiovascular disease in Black women.
The professional development of FACETS students is geared toward preparing for graduate school. Students learn skills in writing personal statements, networking, and building relationships with research mentors. Current Harvard Chan students serve as mentors to FACETS participants, helping to give them a sense of graduate school culture and what to look for in a graduate program.
“We want students to leave the program with a strategy for how to pursue higher education and ultimately how to pursue their careers,” Knight said. “We want them to come away with an arsenal of tools to help them negotiate and defend themselves.”
In one of the professional development workshops held this summer, Amarildo “Lilu” Barbosa, manager of diversity, inclusion and belonging at Harvard Chan School, spoke about the importance of minority representation in public health. Students discussed the challenges that underrepresented minorities face in professional settings, both sharing personal experiences and analyzing a case study.
Overall, the workshop emphasized that students should consider these issues of representation as future leaders in public health, regardless of their role. “It’s a goal you should apply to your work going forward,” Barbosa said. “If people do that, it makes all this work better.”
career inspiration
Grant is currently completing a degree in Chemistry with a minor in Theater and Performing Arts. She said her experience with FACETS sparked her interest in becoming a public health researcher.
Mentored by Tamarra James-Todd, Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology, Grant worked on a research project on hair products for black women, which may contain hormone-disrupting chemicals. Grant investigated potential correlations between product use and a particularly severe form of alopecia – a condition that causes hair loss – which results in permanent scarring. During the project, she was able to develop and explore her own research questions on the subject.
Grant also appreciated the opportunity to speak with researchers in the field — in some cases, those who authored the papers she was reading. “A lot of them said, ‘Let’s keep in touch,’ which just makes me feel like I’m meant to be here, like my ideas were valid,” she said.
In the future, she plans to apply for doctoral programs that will allow her to research the social determinants of health, with the goal of eventually working in the nonprofit sector to advance black maternal health.
FACETS student Gene Pozas — a rising senior at the University of Florida with a major in microbiology and cell science — started college as a medical student, but then realized he wanted to change direction. “I realized that I could have more impact through public health. It could reach more people,” he said.
He conducted research under the direction of Britney Francishealth and human rights researcher FXB Center for Health and Human Rights who studies racial inequalities in maternal health. Her research project examined how environmental stressors, such as living in noise-polluted places or food deserts, can affect the risk of preeclampsia in pregnant Black and Hispanic women.
Pozas also had the good fortune to meet Harvard Chan faculty with expertise in environmental health, prompting him to consider studying in the field. “There are a lot of great teachers who have taught what environmental health is, what it is about,” he said. “And it just showed me how broad it is and how we can apply it to everyday life.”
-Jay Lau
Photos from the FACETS Research Symposium: Anna Webster
Photo of the FACETS cohort: Osa Igiede