March 30, 2023 – Students got a chance to meet with alumni and employers, get insight on navigating their career searches, and learn about key initiatives in equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging (EDIB) at hiring organizations at the first-ever Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Career Summit on March 24 at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
At the event, co-hosted by the Office of Career and Professional Development and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, representatives from employers including the Boston Public Health Commission, International Organization of Migration, GlaxoSmithKline, Sarepta, and others met with current students.
Director of Career and Professional Development Sheila Krishnan said that she and her colleagues created the event because students are often interested in hearing what organizations are doing to support employees of diverse backgrounds and learning about organizational commitments to racial and social justice.
“For many years, research on health disparities has always suggested diversifying the public health and health care workforce as one way to address disparities,” she said. “Organizations have to be intentional about their recruitment and retention efforts to advance that goal.”
The summit opened with a keynote address by Harvard Chan School alumna Monica Wang, SD ’12, Chair of Narrative for the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Wang spoke about growing up as an Asian American in Boston. She lived in a dangerous neighborhood with heavy air pollution and limited healthy food access, but through Boston’s voluntary desegregation program, METCO, she attended school in an affluent neighborhood with green space, with classmates who often participated in expensive extracurricular activities. Witnessing these differences ultimately led her choose a public health education over medical school.
“I realized what I wanted to do was change things at the environmental and policy level,” she said. “[Public health professionals] have to go upstream in order to actually make sustainable change and create more equitable conditions. We have to go outside of public health and health care to the sectors that make a real lasting impact whether that’s [policy], industry, media, or the community.”
Students in attendance also got a chance to participate in “speed networking” to meet with employers from a range of fields, such as consulting, government, and health care.
Anusha Venkatesh, MPH ’23, attended the summit and moderated a panel featuring Harvard Chan alumni. A physician from India, Venkatesh has worked to improve health care inequities among women and children and hopes to continue that work in the future. As an international student and EDI Fellow, Venkatesh thinks it’s important for schools and organizations to focus on inclusivity.
“[The summit] was a great opportunity to understand what I should seek in the jobs I look for in the future,” she said. “DEI-specific career events are important for students to understand conducive work environments that allow for growth and development.”
Krishnan said she received positive feedback from students in attendance, who appreciated the opportunity to have in-depth conversations with employers and alumni, and she hopes to host the event again in future years.