I learned that involving the community and collaborating with its members are cornerstones to improve public health. I also learned that one of the pillars of community health work is community empowerment.

As this was my first field research experience, I learned a ton, but the most important lesson was that you have to be flexible and adjust to changes.

I had expected my trip to Uganda to develop me as an engineer; rather, I returned to the U.S. with a stronger desire to overcome avoidable medical disparities.

When I complete my dissertation, I plan to disseminate the findings to policymakers. I hope the evidence will provide important insights for policy design in rapidly urbanizing areas in the Global South.

We are each writing our own published research paper, so I’ve had to go through the process of getting my IRB protocol done and approved, and writing survey questions.

Managing this project has been one of my proudest achievements during my master’s degree. From learning how to better communicate with and support team members to learning how to manage data and multiple timelines, my experiences gained through this project will forever be some of my fondest memories.

I think having opportunities like Bass Connections, Duke Engage, and these other programs at Duke that encourage learning in different environments really helped encourage me to seek out things that were interesting and also pushed me beyond my comfort level.

Throughout the project, my team and I met some incredible people who made the experience all the more valuable to me. It was one of the most impactful summers of my life.

I loved the subject of the research from the beginning, but I hadn’t realized how challenging designing an intervention and analyzing the collected data could be.

In 2019, we are planning to transition to a more expanded network of healing sites. 

I would encourage students to take advantage of Bass Connections as an opportunity to meet smart, interesting and engaged people who think and solve problems in different ways than they do.

Alongside academics, NGOs and the corporate sector, we were joined by congressional staffers to discuss federal policy changes that would increase funding for rural water programs nationwide.

I was impressed by the openness of the Project Vox team toward aspiring undergraduate researchers. When I came to my first meeting, I was immediately encouraged to start getting involved in a way that aligned with my interests and goals.

I think there are a lot of factors that go into the decision-making [about increasing access to energy]. They’re often overlooked in the equation where we’re calculating energy access, but working closely together with these communities is a really big part of it.

Being the project coordinator for America’s Sacred Spaces drove home for me the importance of being able to switch gears while conducting research. Your team membership might change, the sources you engage might take your inquiries in other directions and you might encounter hurdles that you don’t have the resources to surmount. The key to success is to follow where the research takes you.

Learning from experts on topics ranging from gender-based violence and family planning to the impact of the United States’ global gag rule exposed me to the many opportunities available to make a difference in the field of global reproductive health.

My advice to students considering Bass Connections—other than to seize this unique and worthwhile opportunity—is to be flexible as the project evolves.

I entered into this project with a good-willed but egotistic perspective that my expertise and technical training in the U.S. can be equally applied to Sarawak, Malaysia. I think it’s okay to admit that there are limits to our knowledge in unfamiliar places and that is the purpose of research.

Bass Connections provided me the opportunity to work towards a project that had meaningful impact in the world.