Student Profiles
Timothy Mah
Doctoral student, Department of Population and International Health
His father from China, Timothy Mah calls his family an immigrant success story—all of his siblings have advanced degrees. Tim’s own history has been defined by an ethic of service and a love of travel. In high school he did service projects in Kenya and Dominica. During his undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in biology, Tim worked in an HIV laboratory at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He then served in the Peace Corps in The Gambia. He says, “It was the prototypical experience of living in a hut with no electricity and no running water. It was also my first real public health experience, working at the grassroots level to develop HIV/AIDS initiatives for youths.” Tim knew about the reproductive health research of HSPH professor Allan Hill and decided to come to the school for a master’s program in population and international health, which he completed last year. For his doctoral research he will be looking at concurrent sexual relationships and HIV prevention among young adults in South Africa. After he completes his dissertation, Tim wants to return to the field to see how HIV programs can be improved. “HIV prevention lies at the crossroads of science, politics, and culture,” he notes. “We have to find the right set of keys.”
Sarah Petters
Master’s student, Department of Global Health and Population
While a French language and international development double major at Tulane University, Sarah Petters decided that an internship in Dakar, Senegal, might combine those interests: “It was a life-changing experience.” Working on national vaccination days and providing triage and malaria shots in a district hospital, she saw public health in action and realized that it could be an interesting career. The next year Sarah did another internship in a London hospital and then volunteered to help build clean-burning stoves in Peru. “I returned to New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina,” she says. Relocated to the University of Houston for a semester, Sarah finished her degree at Tulane in 2006. Having decided against medical studies, Sarah applied to several public health schools and chose HSPH after attending the open house for admitted students. The Department of Global Health and Population was the logical fit. Since coming to Harvard, a highlight for Sarah has been her work in Ghana, where she helped to evaluate a reproductive health training program—an experience that has formed the basis of her master’s thesis. Sarah has also been involved in several projects based in the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, including one on former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. “It has been an amazing two years. I can’t think of another period where I have learned more.”