Last Wednesday evening, in one of the highlights of the week for the Hybrid MPH program’s December Intensive session, 25 second-year students got to share the Applied Practice Experience (APE) component of their coursework with peers, faculty, and staff—presenting their research projects at a poster fair and reception held at the Class of 1953 Commons.
Photos by Rob Strong
With research completed in collaboration with a variety of organizations, the topics featured by the students ranged from determining the health literacy needs of a female refugee population to developing a standardized method to test for the presence of microplastics in biological samples.
As a required experiential learning component of the hybrid MPH program, the APE provides planned, guided opportunities for students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in their public health coursework in a real-world, health-related setting. Below, students share comments about the impact of their APE projects.
Carleigh Drill (Class of 2025): “My project really helped to ignite my passion for public health. The classes and discussions with professors here go a long way. But actually having hands-on involvement in my field of interest and feeling like I’m making a direct impact, outside of just learning the content, was huge for me and kept me on track.”
Daffodil Mumuli (Class of 2025): “I’ve been a bedside ICU nurse for 11 years and wasn’t sure that I would like doing research again (after doing it as an undergrad). But I found I really enjoyed it. My APE project has inspired me to combine clinical care and research in the future, to help bring improvements to patient care.”
Katie Lewis (Class of 2025): “Working on this project gave me first-hand exposure to the most relevant and emerging research going on in my area of interest (environmental health). I gained so many new skills in the public health realm, and to be able to present my findings to leaders in the field after many months of work was very rewarding.”
Le Shipuski (Class of 2025): “The best part of the APE component is it allows us to pick our own area of interest, applying the tools and resources we’re given to a topic that we really care about. In the process, we learn a lot about ourselves and our potential to have a positive impact on the health of our communities.”
