Alumni Profile

As a South Florida resident, UM’s Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree, with an Epidemiology and Biostatistics track, was the obvious choice to enhance my skills and provide opportunities to serve diverse communities, given my background and interest in epidemiology, research, and public health.

A pervasive theme of service to public health encapsulates my career path, which consists of several diverse and impactful capacities locally and throughout the Americas. It spans the gamut to include practitioner, researcher, educator, mentor, manager/administrator/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and global health leader. Examples include tenures with the TMRU-UWI, Jamaica and UM; consultancies for the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) headquartered in Rome, Italy and the Pan American Health Organization’s Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute (PAHO-CFNI) where I prepared food and nutrition profiles and conducted nutritional epidemiological investigations for various Caribbean countries. Continuing with my service as Adjunct Lecturer at UWI, Miami Dade College (MDC) and Florida International University (FIU); Research Assistant Professor/Associate Director of the Health Career Opportunities Program at FIU. Also, as the National/Chief Epidemiologist and founding Chief of the National Epidemiology and Research Unit, Ministry of Health, TCI; Interim CEO of the National Health Insurance Board, TCI. I also served as a Scientific Secretary of the Caribbean Health Research Council (CHRC; 2009-2012). The CHRC is a regional body headquartered in Trinidad, which promoted, supported, facilitated and coordinated health research in the Caribbean. It also disseminated findings; and advised/worked with Caribbean governments and other stakeholders on health research matters. In addition to invitations to present and give feature lectures at health meetings/conferences, I have received many honors, awards, and accolades. They include being FIU’s first doctoral candidate recipient of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Aging (NIA) Dissertation Award (1999-2001). It investigated the health and nutritional status of ethnically diverse perimenopausal women in South Florida. I was the only Caribbean-based among the thirteen recipients of the prestigious Global Health Leadership Award (GHLA; 2008- 2012) from the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Leadership Initiative, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, under the theme, “The Global Health Leadership Award Supporting Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.” The GHLA supported my platform of “Strengthening Public Health Infrastructure in the TCI.” I also received the prestigious Caribbean Public Health Agency’s Award (CARPHA; 2016), for “Outstanding Achievements in the area of Health Research and Epidemiology.”

My background and experience at South Florida Institutions, including UM, and internationally, uniquely qualify me for this position. The hallmark of my body of work, under the auspices of supporting the field of public health and social responsibility, is multifocal. It includes fostering academic practice partnerships (APPs); training, mentorship, and capacity building of the public health workforce; strengthening the public health infrastructure and surveillance. Also spearheading and facilitating community sanctioned initiatives to inform health-in-all policy development and support evidence-based decision-making to improve health outcomes.

In my current role as Director of Community Relations with the Department of Public Health Sciences (DPHS), I draw from my prior UM experience daily. It was at UM where I was able to hone my burgeoning skills and further actualize my commitment to public health. I will continue to use those skills and networks to highlight DPHS. The pivotal role of APPs and community involvement to successfully support community-sanctioned initiatives to generate evidence to inform policy development to equitably address health and training needs of diverse population groups in South Florida and globally is fundamental. Since acquiring my MPH from UM in 1993, my career has blossomed and my enduring commitment to public health endures.

What drives and inspires me as a UM employee and alumni is my desire to utilize my position as Director of Community Relations to support public health through spearheading APPs and community sanctioned initiatives to fulfill the mission statement of “transforming lives through research, innovation, and service.” This aligns perfectly with my commitment to “find myself in the service of others,” and being socially responsible. These are congruent with UM’s Ever Brighter Campaign’s commitment to resilience, renewal and taking full advantage of the diversity found within the South Florida community. They will, as President Jul, Dr. Julio Frenk envisions, the Ever Brighter campaign “will raise our profile—and our collective sense of pride and purpose—even higher by sparking innovation with real-world impact.”

To continue to realize my socially responsible calling to “find yourself in the service of others,” through a commitment to public health. In so doing, serving South Florida and the broader national and global communities by being involved in APPs; networking, training of a diverse, dynamic public health workforce; and involvement in community sanctioned health and research initiatives. South Florida’s strategic location as the gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, and its juxtaposition between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres mean that by virtue of its geographic location, UM finds itself at the epicenter of a dynamic, uniquely diverse population milieu. From a public health perspective, this offers UM a “veritable buffet of opportunities” for transformational initiatives and innovations to continue to excel, as a global leader. Areas include building/developing and showcasing resilient and enduring health systems to prevent, timely identify, and equitably address/treat new and emergent health challenges, and cost effective modalities to provide equitable access to health care in diverse communities. Collectively, these could lead to improved health outcomes for communities/diverse populations in South Florida and globally.

From my perspective, public health is one of the most meaningful and rewarding career paths. It is versatile, science-based, dynamic, and allows for engagement in a broad array of diverse options seen through multiple lenses. It has allowed me to run the gamut from educator, mentor, researcher and practitioner to manager, director, global health leader and CEO. The core prerequisite and common thread is a commitment to service and social responsibility. Both anchored by a motivation and dedication to training and capacity building of a diverse workforce. Also generating and using evidence to inform policy and develop initiatives to address health issues in partnership with communities, equitably. This is in furtherance of the goal to improve health outcomes and quality of lives of diverse people/communities. It requires cultural competence and humility, networking, strategic partnerships, adaptability to change, diplomacy, and collaboration/working on inter-disciplinary teams to advocate for and address societal and systemic determinants/factors that also lead to improved health outcomes locally, nationally, and globally. A career in public health is challenging, yet extremely fulfilling even when you are the “unsung hero.”