The Pivot with Ania Wellere

Ania Wellere is transforming health care by utilizing lived experiences.

What’s your role in public health?

I am currently a master’s student and the graduate assistant for the Student Affairs Office at the Gillings School. I work closely with our director of admissions to help recruit students to come to Gillings, and I support our Gillings Student Ambassadors.

I also serve as a research assistant for Dr. Melissa Cox, which gives me the opportunity to work on an alcohol policy database that could potentially change the Alcohol Policy score for the state of North Carolina. Working with Dr. Cox — and reading a lot of policies — makes me feel like I could become a lawyer, to be very honest! I’m looking forward to also getting grant-writing and literature review experience by supporting a manuscript Dr. Cox hopes to develop from this research.

But in general, when I think of my role in public health, I consider it to be advocating for health care to be understood and respected as a human right for everyone. I think a lot of times, people don’t have that mindset. They’ll say they support health equity and human rights, but they don’t stand behind it and do the work.

Can you describe your focus area in one sentence?

Utilizing people’s lived experiences to transform health care.

Within my health equity courses, we prioritize people’s lived experiences, which can inform the care they receive. I’m really interested in community-based participatory research (CBPR), which utilizes qualitative methods to support systems, policies and programs through a focus on feedback from patients and clients. I’d really like to enter the health administrative space to do this work.

What brought you to public health?

In my undergraduate studies, I was originally a biology and global commerce double major. I wanted to work in clinical trial operations for a biopharma company and I interned at a major one. That was a great experience, but then I had to decide between taking an offer to continue my internship or accepting a two-year fellowship opportunity with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration — NOAA, for short. Taking my finances into consideration, I ultimately decided to accept the position with NOAA during my last two years of undergrad. And I thought, “OK, since I’m doing this, I should take a public health course. My school had just started offering global health as a major, and a mentor of mine who started the program recommended that I take one of her classes. I did, and I fell in love.

Learning outside of the natural sciences or life sciences, analyzing issues through a social sciences lens and determining how one’s environment plays a role in health outcomes was so appealing. That’s when I dropped the biology major, dropped the global commerce major and pursued global health in full swing!

During the fall semester of my senior year, I studied abroad and originally had no plans of applying to graduate school. Deciding to apply so late into the application cycle, I was worried that I wouldn’t find a school that felt like the right fit. All it took for me was to talk to Jonathan Earnest, the Gillings School’s director of admissions. He promised me that while Gillings is a big school, it still feels like a small, close-knit community and offers a robust support system. I knew Gillings would be home, just off that conversation I had with him.

Can you describe a time when you’ve pivoted in your public health career?

I’ve always wanted to work abroad for a leading health organizations like WHO, PATH or GAVI. Over the last few years, I’ve had opportunities to study abroad in Bali, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and Jamaica, and I’ve engaged with public health issues including infectious diseases, chronic diseases and substance use through health promotion, education and access. While abroad, I was able to hear and learn from people directly impacted by the health issues I was researching and build community with them.

These wonderful experiences shaped my holistic approach to public health and my decision to pursue a doctoral degree. My original timeline for re-enrolling in school was five years after graduating from Gillings. Given the political climate, I’ve decided to pivot. I am currently applying to doctoral programs in other countries as I get closer to graduating this May.

Who are you when you’re at home?

As a middle child, I often find myself fulfilling the mediator/supportive role for my family. I’m an auntie to my fur-niece, Nova, and I regularly hang out with my sister. I enjoy arts and crafts like building Legos, painting — all that fun stuff! I love to binge-watch cooking and criminal movies or TV series like Next-Level Chef or Criminal Minds.

I’m also a foodie. Being from Chicago, you simply have to enjoy trying different foods. My Chicago hot take is that out of all the major United States cities, we’re in the top two for the best food. Sometimes, we go back and forth with New York as a fellow melting pot of culture, but I believe we’re holding onto our No. 1 spot.