Morgan Buchanan believes the world revolves around our next generation. That and her love of kids is driving her toward a career in maternal child health.
As an undergraduate at Harvard, she pursued both Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and African American Studies. When she took a class entitled “Poverty, Race and Health,” she discovered that the hard sciences and social science come together through public health in a very actionable and personal way.
Now a first-year MPH student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), Morgan is particularly interested in pediatrics, health equity and the marriage of quantitative and qualitative approaches into implementation of public health interventions. “I like the flexibility of the SBS approach. You can’t split someone between their biology and the context of their health determinants. In SBS you can mesh the two.”
At Yale’s Equity Research Innovation Center, Morgan is a research assistant for the deployment of emergency kits in the Caribbean. “My family is from the Caribbean, so this is so personal for me,” says Morgan. “It is also a tangible way to help people immediately.”
In addition to her studies, Morgan volunteers as the SBS department representative to the Student Association of Yale Public Health, as a student ambassador to prospective students and with the student-run Neighborhood Health Project.