After spending two years in Swaziland working in HIV/AIDS prevention and care, Anna is back at school for a master's degree in public health. Whether her next steps take her back overseas, or keep her in the states, Anna hopes to continue her work in prevention and disease management with at-risk populations.

-- Interviewed by Hannah Waight

When Anna started school at University of Virginia, she had never even heard of public health. While completing a dual major in women and gender studies and religious studies, she grew to find public health interesting for the broader view of the world it showed her. Anna became interested in women's health in Africa. During her time at UVA, she was awarded competitive research grants to do field work, studying HIV/AIDS prevention partnerships in sub-Saharan Africa. (Anna: "For which I wrote and produced a documentary.")

Although many students interested in public health will go to graduate school immediately after college, Anna decided to do things a little different. Due to the extreme costs of graduate school and a desire to gets some "hands-on" experience, Anna decided to delay school and go into the Peace Corps.

Returning from being a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, Anna applied to graduate schools to get a Master's in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Although she has an interest in international public health, Anna is currently pursuing a multi-disciplinary degree.

She was able to find funding through the Point Foundation, an organization promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, that offers scholarships for students who have been leaders in the different communities. Anna says that the process of applying for the scholarship "peaked my interested in the needs, behaviors, and risks of sexual-minority and gender non-conforming youths."

Graduate school has been a great choice for Anna, but--especially after a few years out of college and her experience doing community work in Africa--Anna says: "The pace of Johns Hopkins accelerated MPH program was quite a change." Still, Anna welcomed the challenge and has thrived.

Anna spent two years working for the Peace Corps in Swaziland, a country where more than one in three adults are HIV-positive. The job was just what Anna wanted: a chance to see public health in action and explore her interest in HIV/AIDS.

She credits her time in Africa with developing her personal public-health principles. "I was in a unique position -- living at the village-level -- to witness government and non-government AIDS initiatives both succeed and fail. I saw firsthand the need for evidence-based approaches, scientifically rigorous interventions, and culturally sensitive programming." These criteria are important for any marginalized population, her interests translated well into her thesis research on transgender populations.

Anna chose the public health school at Johns Hopkins because of its strong AIDS program, but when she got there, she "found a disturbing lack of LGBT research." Because knowing about at-risk populations is so important in being able to serve them, Anna took the opportunity to carve out her own niche and involve her peers and professors in her work. "One of my fondest memories from graduate school will be sitting across from the director of the HIV laboratories (who is a professor of microbiology) and explaining contemporary queer theory in the context of culturally appropriate approaches to transgender HIV/AIDS research."

Having the opportunity to explore other populations affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Anna is more committed than ever to working in the field. "I think it is important to acknowledge that while the AIDS epidemics in the U.S. and the Africa are, on the surface, very different, there are still valuable lessons to be learned from both."

Between her experience with at-risk populations in Africa and now in inner cities, Anna has built a strong resume of finding new ways of approaching problems that so many find intractable.

The future is wide open for Anna. Graduating in May, she has her sights set both domestically and internationally, dedicated to a career in HIV/AIDS. Equipped with tools in program administration and evaluation, she could easily become a program manager. However, with a commitment to community-based participatory approaches, she is intent on maintaining a grassroots perspective. "I think it's critical for EVERYONE--from the organization director to the street outreach worker--to understand the real life challenges and obstacles faced by the populations with which they are working."

What more dedication could one person have? Anna says she will take a quick breath after graduation and then plunge back into work, anxious to return to direct service, advocacy, and project planning. And which continent? Well that remains to be seen.