Karla Jimenez is a newly minted citizen with a clear goal: achieving health equity.
Name: Karla Jimenez
Position: I’m a graduate student in the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Master of City and Regional Planning dual degree program.
Time at the Gillings School: I’ve been studying here for three years.
Karla prepares to take drone footage in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, during her summer practicum.
What I do at UNC Gillings (and why I love it): With my dual degree, I’m specializing in understanding the relationship between healthy behaviors and land uses. In other words, I’m exploring how physical environments can influence people’s intents and actions, which in turn affect their health outcomes. I focus particularly on transient populations and on the effects of housing instability on mental and physical health.
I adore the people I’ve met at Gillings. I’ve made some lifelong friends, which is easy in a culture that’s all about collaboration and building each other up. I also love the opportunities to investigate other disciplines and perspectives. I’m a teaching assistant for one of the new MPH core classes on understanding public health issues, and we cover a wealth of topics in that course with an interdisciplinary teaching team.
I also had the opportunity to complete a unique practicum this past summer. I traveled to Mexico and Ecuador on a grant from the National Geographic Society and investigated how expats are changing local communities and social determinants of health in colonial cities across Latin America. [Editor’s note: See Karla’s first and second blog posts about her summer experience.] My teammates and I collected media in the cities we visited — like photographs, videos and drone footage — which helped fulfill my ongoing passion for film-making and visual storytelling.
Karla (left) hugs her friend Nadia Pacheco, who married Karla’s health behavior classmate.
The pivotal moment that led me to public health: happened after I transferred to UNC from a community college in Miami, Fla. I took a course during my final semester called “Health and Human Rights,” which was taught by Gillings adjunct associate professor Dr. Benjamin Meier. I registered for the class because I was interested in protecting marginalized communities. In the process of taking that course, Dr. Meier opened my eyes to the world of public health and the possibilities for creating systematic change through this field. One critical piece in achieving universal human rights is achieving true health equity.
Something I’m proud of: is where I am now in life. I had a pretty difficult upbringing in Venezuela, with unstable environments throughout most of my childhood. Now, I’ve reached a point of stability and I find myself achieving my professional goals.
I also enjoy living in the Triangle. This part of North Carolina has an energy and dedication to meaningfully supporting so many different communities – this area completely subverted my expectations of what life in a southern town would be like. People here focus on the good life, too. They enjoy small pleasures like hanging out in nature or enjoying amazing local cheese.
Karla (right) visits the Great Smoky Mountains with her best friends from Miami (Karla Caballero on the left and Kevin Narvaez in the middle). She says, “This photo shows us marveling at the fact that we city folks made it out in nature.”
A fictional character I identify with: Well, I can think of three. I’m a hybrid of Daria from the MTV show, with her monotone façade and love of music; Disney’s “Aladdin,” because of his intense desire to socialize with people and make sure everyone is taken care of; and Chiron from “Moonlight,” since we have a shared experience of growing up as queer minorities in Miami and struggling to be honest with yourself despite your environment.
Something most people wouldn’t guess about me: is that I received my U.S. citizenship last summer and was able to legally leave the country for the first time in 17 years. Since then, I’ve visited seven countries: Canada, Iceland, Germany, France, Ecuador, Mexico and Japan.
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