Name: Elizabeth (Mendoza-Tirado) Cassidy
Graduation Year: 2022
Additional or Previous Degrees: BA
Briefly describe your current role as a public health practitioner: I am currently a research program manager at a nationwide non-profit called TSC Alliance. We are a rare disease advocacy organization providing support and further research for treatment for those with tubersclerosis complex (TSC). I communicate with the TSC community in making them feel comfortable in participating in projects such as a biorepository and a database. I also help organize a variety of other research-related tasks within the organization while I help manage the main research database. I hope to bring my concentration of maternal and child health at GW by providing educational materials for both providers and the community of what women with TSC might need throughout the lifespan.
Why did you choose GW's Milken Institute School of Public Health for your public health education? I chose GW because it was one of the few schools where I could focus on maternal and child health. I also am native to the DC area so I couldn’t see myself being in any other city!
What skills from your public health degree do you apply in your work today? I apply research skills that I learned in classes like maternal and child health II and intro to clinical trials. I think program evaluation also helped introduce me to the intricacies of managing a program within a non-profit and how to improve not only for stakeholders but internally as an organization as well.
Tell us about your CE experience: I did my CE with Dr. Vyas and Dr. Napolitano in Chronotype patterns for pregnant women. My year included one of the first “group” CE’s, so it was a great experience creating an online survey as a team and being able to rely on one another for our project. My CE also helped a lot for my career in research as it involved creating a community survey and disseminating it using various outlets like social media and communication with clinics.
Tell us about your Practicum experience: I did my practicum with a mobile COVID-19 vaccination program with Dr. Erin Athey. It was another great experience to hone in on research and program evaluation skills to see which locations we needed to improve on to help battle vaccine hesitancy and access.
What advice would you give to the next generation of public health practitioners? The greatest thing about public health is that there is SO many things that you can do with your degree- whether it be in research, non-profit, government and policy, environmental advocacy, etc. You can truly find what you love and bring a unique public health perspective into your career. Whatever you love to do, focus on that during your time at Milken whether it be through your CE or practicum as you will gain amazing training and feedback from your mentors and peers at GW.