Kristen George

Kristen George, research assistant in the Department of Environmental Health, is exchanging the labs of HSPH for the rural communities of one of the world’s poorest countries. George is a Peace Corps volunteer and leaves in June for Malawi, where the average life expectancy is 37 years.

Two weeks after graduating with a biology degree from Bates College in Maine, George came to HSPH in 2000. She was interested in public health and subsequently became focused on international health. She thought the Peace Corps would give her a chance "to see what practicing public health is really like, to really experience it first hand."

In her Peace Corps application, George specified that she wanted to go to sub-Saharan Africa because of a lifelong interest in the area. She had already spent an undergraduate semester in Kenya studying wildlife management and ecology.

Malawi is struggling with a high AIDS infection rate. Nearly 16 percent of all adults have HIV. In addition, thousands of people have died from a famine in the country over the past few months.

George will be based at a community health center in rural Malawi, focusing on AIDS-related and other disease prevention programs. She will be there for two years.