I started off my first- year doing biomedical research at the Mayo Clinic and quickly found myself interested in the upstream factors of liver disease, rather than the cellular makeup of diseased cells. During that process, my research mentors gave me the opportunity to explore public health into my work. This led to my exposure to public health research and epidemiology. I ended up spending a year in a lab doing chronic disease epidemiology about pediatric asthma, leading to my passion for conducting pediatric research. Most recently, I completed an undergraduate research fellowship at the University of Minnesota where I conducted research on the mental health of Black adolescent students in Minnesota.
Besides from research, I have always been interested into combining my interests in public health and research with my faith identity. My positive experiences with the faith community at St. Olaf was definitely a major factor in the direction I decided to take my major!
Beginning my first-year, I served as a member of St. Olaf’s Muslim Student Association executive board where I worked on establishing relationships with local Muslim efforts and supporting Muslim-identifying students on campus. Throughout these roles, I met amazing Muslim leaders in MN and was able to grow as a student leader. This led to my role as an Interfaith Fellow my senior year. One of the projects I worked on as an Interfaith Fellow was planning a panel of faith and vocational discernment.
Speaking of vocational discernment, one of the most meaningful experiences at St. Olaf was being able to start our Public Health Club. What stemmed from an Intro to Public Health class led to my confidence to pursue public health as a career and apply to grad school. I am forever grateful for being able to create and facilitate spaces where fellow students and I could talk about all things public health. Within the two years of its creation, we were able to have a number of collaborations with outside professors, physicians, and community health clinics.
All these experiences led to the culmination of my senior project. I wanted to choose a project that was meaningful and would be able to integrate my interests in health disparities, mental health, and my own faith tradition, Islam.
You can learn more about my senior project here.