About Community Engaged Learning Fellowships

At Harvard Chan, community engaged learning and scholarship serves an important role in public health education, offering students an opportunity to explore and exercise ethical and authentic engagement with community partners and stakeholders. Based on a service learning framework, students engage in their applied practice experience and research endeavors through a process of listening to learn, self-reflection, and attention to contexts and social systems – critical skills in public health practice and leadership development.

Community engaged learning and scholarship:

  • is developed, implemented, and evaluated in collaboration with community;
  • responds to community-identified concerns;
  • attempts to balance the service that is provided and the learning that takes place;
  • provides opportunities for ongoing critical reflection and examination of social issues while situating the self within a community setting.

Harvard Chan’s Office of Educational Programs offers three fellowship opportunities for students interested in community engaged learning: the Rose Service Learning Fellowship, the Herbert S. Winokur, Jr. Fellowship in Public Health for the Mississippi Delta, and the Global Mental Health Fellowship.

Click here to access the Community Engaged Learning Fellowships Program: Principles and Practice handbook


“The Water Guy”: My Reflections Studying Water Systems in Rural Honduras

Nava Barman, MPH-Global Health ’22, Details his experience from fieldwork in Honduras, focusing on water quality issues.

Exploring Healthcare and Community Engagement in Brazil

Medha Iyer, MPH ’24 engages in a health research project with the Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde (IEPS). Focused on social participation, patient engagement, and healthcare utilization.

Knock, knock. Who’s there: A Mobile Clinic, an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, and an Open Mind

Janae Briggs, SM '24 worked with The Family Van, a mobile clinic in Boston. Engaging with the community, the author witnessed the clinic's profound impact on residents' lives.