Alumni Spotlight: Meagan Williams, MSPH ’20

• Degree Program: MSPH
• Area of Interest: Maternal, Fetal and Perinatal Health
• Graduation Year: 2020
• Hometown: Sterling Heights, Michigan
• Previous Degree Earned: Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience, University of Michigan 

What sparked your interest in public health? 

I first discovered public health during my undergraduate program at the University of Michigan. I had a lot of interests that seemed only somewhat related to each other at the time and was struggling to decide what to do after graduation. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but couldn't decide which of my interests to focus on and the idea of needing to choose a single career path was tough for me. I was very passionate about neuroscience, child development, abuse and violence prevention, trauma-informed care, pregnancy, and supporting new families in the perinatal period. During my senior year, I had a ton of professional coffee dates with people in my community whose work I admired in all of those areas (midwives, researchers, sexual violence advocates, program directors), and realized that almost all of them had experience in public health! At some point, someone urged me to sign up for a public health class during my last semester of undergrad, and I've been in love and invested ever since.

What led you to choose Bloomberg School of Public Health and/or join the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health? 

It's no secret that the Bloomberg School of Public Health is a top choice for public health. When considering different graduate programs, I felt that the MSPH in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health would maximize my ability to learn from top researchers and clinicians and give me the best opportunity to grow my career as a public health professional. Even more importantly, I was moving out of Michigan for the first time and was looking for a place where I could feel surrounded by a community of people with similar values. I attended an event for prospective students before deciding on a program and remember feeling very "at home" surrounded by PFRH faculty and current students.

My field placement was extremely valuable for me and genuinely changed the trajectory of my life!

How did your degree prepare you for current and future roles? What aspects of the PFRH degree program did you find most useful? 

From an academic and career growth perspective, I loved having so many classes to choose from to really personalize the degree program how I wanted. Having certificate programs was a great way to help ground me and put me on a path of learning what I came into the program to learn, and again, it was so wonderful to take classes with other students whose values aligned with mine. I learned very tangible skills that I use and teach others in my day-to-day work years later (shoutout to Donna Strobino and her class on critiquing literature!) and which prepared me for dealing with "real-world" issues in public health research and practice. My field placement was extremely valuable for me and genuinely changed the trajectory of my life! I could not be more grateful for that. On a more personal level, the program challenged me in ways that I had never been challenged before, which helped me learn that I can survive difficult times and come out stronger than I was before. I am still connected with other folks who were in my cohort, and I hope the friends I made in the program stay in my life for a long time.

Describe your current position and responsibilities in a way that will inform current and prospective students about career opportunities in your field. 

I have a bit of a unique situation and am so very lucky to have found a path that allows me to dive into all of my personal and professional interests. First, I work in clinical research at a local children's hospital, where I support primarily investigator-initiated studies looking into how prenatal and neonatal exposures to things like infectious disease and brain injury impact long-term child development. I am responsible for managing the day-to-day conduct of multiple research studies, overseeing the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative research data, and publishing and presenting findings in academic journals and conferences. In addition to my research role at the hospital, I am also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and founded Peaceful Perinatal, where I provide trauma-sensitive and queer-affirming lactation support and education to families in the perinatal period. It is the greatest joy to support the health of babies and the holistic wellbeing of families in this way and I am so deeply grateful for all of the personal and professional support I've received during this journey.