Public Health Buckeyes: Kassandra Brooks

I have always been interested in science and medicine, especially infectious diseases. In undergrad I majored in microbiology and planned on later getting a PhD to work as a microbiology researcher. As I continued in my degree, I realized I was not very interested in laboratory work, and I felt lost as to what to do with my degree after graduating.

I ended up shadowing an epidemiologist at my county’s health department during my senior year and realized public health was the field I was looking for, particularly epidemiology. This is because it allows me to study infectious diseases at a broader level, while improving the health of an entire community in the process.

I’m most passionate about infectious disease epidemiology, particularly investigating disease outbreaks and pandemic preparedness. My favorite class in undergrad was about tropical disease biology, and from that I learned a lot about neglected tropical diseases and Global One Health and have become passionate about these topics as well.

With climate change and increasing globalization, I believe tropical diseases will become more common in the U.S. It’s important to understand how to identify them, how they spread and ultimately how we can globally eliminate these diseases.

It gave me a good understanding of the infection preventionist role and how the field of public health can work closely with medicine to improve community health.

Before my internship, I did not know a lot about hospital epidemiology and infection prevention. Now I see how much infection preventionists do behind the scenes to keep patients, staff and visitors safe. I saw how medical and public health experts can work together to improve health, and it opened my eyes to potential career options beyond working for health departments or academic institutions.

I have really enjoyed how the size of the college creates a small school feel with the resources of a large institution. I like that my class sizes are small, so I am able to easily connect with my peers and professors. I was a bit nervous before starting my MPH that it would be hard to make connections at such a large school, so I have appreciated that CPH is small enough that I feel like I am part of a close community.

I want to work as an infectious disease epidemiologist for a state or local health agency, or, thanks to my internship at the Wexner Medical Center, work as an infection preventionist.

I am open to exploring other career opportunities as well. My experience at CPH has taught me that the field of public health is so broad and there may be other career pathways I have not even thought of that I would enjoy.

Get to know the people in your cohort! My classes have been challenging at times, so it has been very helpful to have a group of people to bounce ideas off of and work together to solve problems.

Everyone also comes into their MPH with different backgrounds and experiences, so I have learned so much about public health just from having conversations outside of class about what we’ve been learning about.