News

Daniel Kim Selected as President’s Public Service Fellow

Daniel Kim, M.P.H./M.Div. candidate ‘09 in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Program (SBS) at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), has been selected as one of thirty-six Yale students, from a pool of more than 200 applicants, to work in the New Haven community as this year’s President’s Public Service Fellow.

Established in 1994 by Yale President Richard C. Levin, the fellowships provide stipends to students who work for local not-for-profit organizations for 8-12 weeks during the summer. The fellowships compensate students so they can work in the public interest, and provide highly motivated and capable summer help to community organizations at no cost.

Mr. Kim has been working at the Fair Haven Community Center on a variety of projects including working with Excel Macros to automate the data cleaning and analysis process of the PediBRIDGE database, which may possibly lead to his thesis, as he is particularly interested in childhood obesity. PediBRIDGE is a database of 600 children who are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. The database is a YSPH and Fair Haven Community Health Center collaboration.

“Without [the Fellowship’s] support, my work at the Fair Haven Community Center would not have been possible,” he remarked. “I was very impressed by the fellowship administrators’ dedication to the improvement of New Haven through the strengths of both Yale and the local non-profit organizations. It was an honor for me to be a part of that effort.”

In addition to his work on the PediBRIDGE database, Mr. Kim served as an intern this summer teaching children and teenagers health education at the Fair Haven Public Library, and has conducted data analysis to assess the effects of a Meditation-based Stress Reduction program held for the staff at the Fair Haven Community Health Center. He is currently setting up a longitudinal database to track women with a history of gestational diabetes and are at an increased risk of developing Type II Diabetes. “The hope is to help the clinic track these women over time and address their needs more efficiently,” he said. This database could potentially be used to produce further studies in gestational diabetes. “There is much that the health center has to teach the academic world and to help bridge the gap between research and practice, and this is one way.”

Mr. Kim also works at the HAVEN Clinic, a student-run free clinic that operates on Saturdays at the Fair Haven Community Health Center. After graduation, he hopes to pursue a career that involves churches participating in public health activities in developing countries. Mr. Kim received his B.A. in history with a minor in chemistry from Wheaton College in 2005.