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Community Activist Receives Student Recognition Award
This year's Student Recognition Award, the highest honor that the HSPH student body bestows on a fellow student, has been presented to S. Bryn Austin, doctoral student in the Department of Health and Social Behavior. The award is given to a student who demonstrates commitment to excellence and leadership through student and/or community service-oriented action. "I was surprised," she said. "There are so many people at the school who do interesting and important work. I'm honored to be chosen for this award."
S. Bryn Austin, SD '99 (Department of Health and Social Behavior), received
this year's Student Recognition Award.
Austin's work on strategies for preventing eating disorders among adolescents has culminated in her thesis, "Dieting in Adolescence: Smoking, Disordered Eating, and Strategies for Prevention." In her research, Austin draws on population-based models of prevention, "to target social environments that impact norms related to dietary patterns, weight-control strategies, and weight-based stigma. My aim has been to build a case for population-wide reduction in dieting as a means to prevent eating pathology."
With a long history of activism, she is currently involved in several student and community service projects, including HSPH's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Alliance. She helped organize National Coming Out Day in October, a documentary film program on the African-American gay community for Black History Month in February, and most recently, a symposium on health issues in the transgender community in April. "The theme that runs through my work is a commitment to community organizing and an interest in social movements. I want to change conditions that create inequalities in health and rights, and work towards a more egalitarian society, tying in feminist and antiracist views. I try to bring these perspectives to everything I do," she says.
Austin's volunteer activities outside of HSPH include the Astraea National Lesbian Foundation, where she serves as a member of the funding panel that provides grants to grassroots organizations with progressive and antiracist advocacy efforts. Locally, she serves on the board of directors for Project 10 East, an organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) youth in the Boston area. With Project 10 East, Austin works to reduce homophobia in local schools. "We'd like to create a safe haven for GLBT kids," says Austin. "We try to encourage schools to be gay-friendly, to increase their tolerance, and to provide support for gay youth. Teachers and administrators set the tone for a school, and it's important they create an environment where kids can feel safe."
In collaboration with another Boston-area group, the GLBT Health Access Project, Austin created a radio public service announcement that "promotes a recent GLBT consumer movement organized to increase the representation of the GLBT voice in the medical system." She continues, "Often people won't 'come out' to their providers because of discrimination or lack of visibility among medical professionals. Or they won't seek medical care at all. They disengage from the medical system because of how they've been treated or how they anticipate being treated."
While an undergraduate at Cornell University, Austin chaired a GLBT student group, founded a feminist newspaper, and conducted educational workshops on gay and lesbian issues. Subsequently, she worked for several years in Los Angeles as a legislative staffer for the AIDS Hospice Foundation and as the managing editor for the Advocate, a national gay and lesbian newsmagazine. As an editor at the Advocate, she covered anti-discrimination efforts, medical advances in AIDS treatment, and a range of other important issues in the gay and lesbian communities. She believes progress has been made in the last 10 to 20 years, "but, in one community you can have a domestic partnership law passed, while in the same state someone could be killed from a bashing. Progress isn't consistent, and there are contradictions on many levels."
When asked how she came to HSPH she says, "I wanted to pursue my interests in health while integrating my political work and dedication to community. These tools are built into public health more than into the other medical and biological fields of health."
After graduation, Austin will assume a position with Boston Children's Hospital in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, where she will continue to research eating disorders, teach, mentor fellows, and begin HIV prevention work. "I'm looking forward to being out in the world again."
