In our series “Why Public Health?” we ask Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students and alumni to talk about what drew them to the field. Jeremiah Zhe Liu, MS ’15, wants to develop more precise information on the impact of air pollution on people’s health and hopes to use that knowledge to form evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. (2:37)

In our series “Why Public Health?” we ask Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students and alumni to talk about what drew them to the field. Kimberly Chang, MPH ’15, worked with refugee communities at a health center in Oakland, California, some of them teenage girls involved in sexual trafficking. The experience led her to Harvard Chan to study health policy so that she gains the skills, networks, and leadership ability to move beyond just treating individual patients’ symptoms toward...

In our series “Why Public Health?” we ask Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students and alumni to talk about what drew them to the field. Selasi Dankwa, PhD ’15, took an early interest in infectious diseases like malaria and cholera, a part of everyday life in her home country of Ghana. She came to Harvard Chan School to study the malaria parasite in the lab. Now she envisions taking her skills and knowledge and returning to Ghana to “make a difference.” (2:35)

In our series “Why Public Health?” we ask Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students and alumni to talk about what drew them to the field. After spending time in Cameroon, Margee Louisias, MD, MPH ’16 came to the realization that asthma “is truly a global disease.” As a Harvard Chan student, she is working on a pilot project to improve communication between school nurses and asthma care specialists in order to reduce the prevalence of the disease among inner-city school children in...

In our series “Why Public Health?” we ask Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students and alumni to talk about what drew them to the field. Charles Upton’s interest in injury prevention led him to Harvard Chan, where he has worked closely with his academic advisor David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Upton, who will receive his MPH in May, looks forward to having a network of classmates and other Harvard connections nearby wherever his career takes...