Welcome  to  a  special  edition  of Beyond  the  Nest  University  of  Minnesota, Rochester's  alumni  podcast. I'm  Mark  Lance. In  today's  episode,  we  hear  from  Evan  Doyle  Umar, class  of  2013,  as  he  chats with  fellow  raptor  alum,  Rachel  Sisler. The  two  touch  on  a  wide  range  of  topics. From  what  brought  Evan  to  Umar, to  his  capstone  experience  and  the  work  he  does  now  in the  global  health  policy  space.  Stay  with  us,  won't  you? You  and  I  were  fortunate  enough  to be  one  of  the  first  couple  classes  to  come  to  Mar, and  you  were  in  fact,  the  first  class  to graduate  was  ten  whole  years  ago. I  know  it  makes  me  feel  old. Yeah,  I  know  it's  like, wow,  where  did  the  time  go? Yeah,  we've  been  friends  for  like  12  years. Has  it  been  12  years  ago?  That  makes  me  feel  older. Do  you  remember  the  first  time  we  met? Actually,  you  were  still  saved  in  my  phone. I  still  am. Yeah,  you  are.  We  met  at  a  party  at  Bridge  Street. Bridge  Street  was  the  first  year  housing  right? Back  then,  and  I  think  you  guys  threw  the  party. Oh  yeah. We  were  old  ones  on  campus.  I  never  threw  a  party. Crash,  that  party,  you  took  my  phone and  wrote  your  Dave  as  Rachel, my  little  Asian  fresh. And  12  years  later  still  my phone  that  didn't  age  well.  I  don't  know. Can  you  describe  Mar  in three  words,  Innovative,  challenging,  professional. Oh  my  gosh.  That's  exactly how  I  would  have  described  your.  Wow. Maybe  it's  because  it  used  to  be the  slogan  of  dyes  and  somehow  we incorporated  that  into  like the  student  government's  Constitution  brand. Talk  a  little  bit  about  maybe  what drove  you  to  choosing the  University  of  Minnesota,  Rochester? Sure.  I  grew  up  in  a  very  tiny  town  in  South  Dakota. I  was  very  determined  to  get  out  of  that  town. In  out  of  South  Dakota. The  pathway  that  I  understood  would be  solid  to  pursue  would  be  medical  Dr. When  I  was  choosing  undergraduate  programs, UMR  was  at  the  top because  they  were  very  focused  on  health  sciences. It  was  a  brand  new  campus. At  the  time  I  was  in  the  first  class, they  had  a  really  innovative  approach to  how  they  were  designing  curriculum. They  were  very  excited  for the  new  class  to  come  on  board. I  really  chose  it  for  those  reasons  that  the  energy around  the  new  campus  that  was  popping  up, sort  of  extracurriculars  did  you  do  in  college?  Okay. Let  me  just  go  back  to  So  it  was  a  risky  decision, I  think  as  an  18  year  old, you  don't  think  of  risk  in  the  same  way  as  you do  as  a  32  year  old. Now  for  me,  I  saw  those  risks  as  more  opportunities. Challenges  didn't  seem  like  big  barriers. They  seemed  to  me  at  the  time as  a  formal  path  hadn't  been  carved  yet. There  weren't  many  barriers in  my  way  for  doing  whatever  I  wanted. And  more  opportunity  to  push  boundaries too,  when  I  enrolled. There  weren't  any  clubs, there  weren't  any  organizations  yet. I  was  always  very  into  politics  and  governance, and  I  was  in student  government  when  I  was  in  high  school. So  one  of  the  big  things  that  I pursued  when  I  joined UMR  was  to  start  a  student  government. We  started  with  a  student  activities  committee. I  think  that  was  the  first  thing.  Basically,  we started  that  committee  just  to  spend this  student  activities  budget that  had  been  taken  out  of  our  tuition. We  started  there,  then  the  university  system said  you  need  to  have  a  student  senator. Then  I  moved  over  to  being  our  student  senator. Then  the  Director  of  Student  Activities, I  think  was  his  title  at  the  time,  Said,  you  know, you  have  all  these  kind  of random  governance  structures  that  are  cropping  up, so  you  should  probably  have one  formalized  student  government. So  I  got  a  bunch  of  friends  together. We  drafted  a  constitution  and  some  by  laws, and  we  created  a  student  government, which  I'm  very  happy  to see  on  the  website,  is  still  going. That's  the  Rochester  Student  Association. So  then  I  served  as  the  first  president.  Yeah. Give  us  two  terms. So  you  built  out  the  bylaws  and  the  Constitution. Did  you  do  that  with  help  from  other  students? Well,  as  much  like I  think  I  was  pretty  unique  in getting  really  excited  about  those  kind  of  things. I  was  a  bit  of  a  nerd  on  about  yeah,  it  was. I  did  a  ton  of  research on  how  other  campuses had  designed  their  governance  structures, spoke  with  student  leaders  on  other  campuses. So  really  borrowed  a  lot, all  my  favorite  parts  from  other  constitutions, especially  in  the  U  system. And  then  my  friends  who  would  put  up  with  me, I  forced  them  to  kind  of  proof read  things,  get  some  agreement. I  held  a  town  hall  where I  projected  the  constitution  and  like  made everyone  read  it  on  the  screen more  so  that  I  feel  like  I  said  this  so  many  times, I  didn't  want  this  to  be  Evan  Doyle's  constitution. This  needed  to  be,  you  know, our  actual  student  constitution. Forced  that  engagement,  whether  they  like  it  or  not. Right.  And  one  that  was  comparable  to, at  the  very  least,  the  other  U  of  M  system  campuses. And  what  they  upheld  for their  student  governments  campuses, it  lended  some  legitimacy to  us  within  the  university  system, but  it  also  provided  us, the  students  at  UMR, knowing  that  the  cohorts  would  just grow  and  grow  and  institutionalize  over  time. Yeah,  it  created  that  framework  for  us to  make  sure  the  students  would  in  the  future, have  representation  within  faculty, decision  making,  staff  decision  making, and  formal  mechanisms  for  spending  that  budget. From  the  beginning,  I  had  always  been  thinking there  are  ways  that  this  campus, the  student  body,  the  organization would  evolve  that  I  could  not  predict. The  goal  was  always  to  create some  framework  that  would  be  a  living  document. An  organization  that  would  have the  engagement  in  the  representation across  the  student  body  that  would allow  those  decisions  to  be  made. Clearly,  it's  evolved  with the  needs  of  the  time.  That  makes  me  very  happy. Yeah.  Alongside  your  academics,  how  did  you  balance  that? Well,  it  didn't  really  feel like  something  I  needed  to  balance. I  suppose  it  was  something  I  was passionate  about  and  excited  about. Interested  in  my  sense at  the  time  which  I  observing  from  afar. Now  as  the  campus  has  grown  that  Mr.  Really  had a  culture  of  professionalism  for  me. Although  I  professionalism  doesn't necessarily  mean  that  we  were  all  squares. I  hope  that  I'm  not  so  much  a  square, but  there  was  just  a  certain  level  of  diligence. Diligence,  the  right  word.  Yeah,  Discipline.  Discipline. Discipline. Of  course,  like  I  was  there  to  study, I  was  there  to  do  well  in  my  courses to  move  on  to  the  next  phase  of  my  life. But  I  made  sure  to leave  room  for  the  things  I  was  interested  in  as  well. And  I  applied  that  same  level  of  discipline, both  to  the  course  work  as  I  did  to  my  extracurriculars. Do  you  feel  that  the  group of  students  that  you  moved  through your  undergraduate  education  with  also  had a  similar  sense  of  pioneers  to  them? Just  knowing  that  like all  of  you  know  we  talk  about  risk, all  of  you  put  your  eggs  into  this  UMR  basket  that  really didn't  have  a  whole  lot  to  show  at  that  point. Yeah,  I  think  so. I  mean,  we're  all  doing  quite  different  things, so  I  think  that  speaks  to  how  there was  very  loose  path  that  UMR  had  set  out  for  us, and  because  it  was  a  new  program, was  evolving  in  real  time, which  we  had  to  be  really  adaptable  to. But  I  really  think  it  gave  us the  flexibility  to  explore  what  we  were interested  in  and  not  to  get  so  stuck  on, you  know,  I  have  to  do  this, I  have  to  do  that  because  it's  expected to  me  and  I'm  so  zeroed  in  on this  final  goal  that  I  don't  have  flexibility  to pursue  other  things  that  I'm  in  or  get  sidetracked and  find  a  completely  new  interest  either,  right? Yeah,  and  I  think  that  really  came  to fruition  in  the  capstone  because  I  remember at  the  time  my  class  was the  first  year  to  do  capstones and  there  weren't  a  ton  of  rules. In  my  case,  I  took  advantage  of those  very  few  rules  to  do  something  really  humongous, which  spanned,  I  think, a  longer  period  of  time  than  most  capstones  did. But  I  know  other  friends  who  didn't  do  what  I  did, they  something  that  fit  more. Sure,  we're  going  to  get  into  the  capstone  briefly, but  I  did  want  to  just  reflect on  the  idea  of  this  professionalism  with  UMR. I  mean,  it  is  such  a  unique  campus and  like  a  lot  of  campuses  where  there's  sports, there's  tons  of  clubs  to  involve  in  our  campus  certainly has  those  different  unique  opportunities of  inner  murals  and  starting  your  own  club. But  on  top  of  that,  it's  this  idea  that those  extracurriculars  are  built off  of  internships  and  mentorships. And  opportunities  that  professionally are  going  to  drive  students  in the  direction  they  need  to  go  in  order to  pursue  their  career  endeavors. I  don't  know  any  thoughts  on  that. Yeah,  I  mean,  I  do  remember,  again, this  is  ten  to  14  years ago  that  thinking  back,  you're  so  old. I  know  I  do  remember  that  one  of  the  big  draws  for  me  to UMR  was  its  proximity  to  Mayo  Clinic  and how  graded  the  medical  field  is  in  this  community. I  remember  at  the  time  we  had courses  that  were  specifically  for  career  exploration, which  I  found  very  valuable. I  think  the  way  that  I  thought  about  them  at  the  time  is much  different  than  I  think  about  them  In  retrospect, at  the  time  I  thought,  okay, this  is  going  to  be  the  vehicle for  getting  a  job  or  getting  into  medical  school, or  getting  into  graduate  school, when  in  reality  it  was  more  a  training  ground for  how  to  interact  with  people  out  in the  real  world  and  how  to  be. Seek  out  those  kind  of  exposures to  other  perspectives  and  what  options  are  out  there. Sure.  Because  without  that  kind  of  exposure, I  think  it's  really  easy  to  get  on one  track  and  just  focus  on  medical  school  for  example. Right.  I  know  friends  and  it's  not  just  medical  school. I  know  friends  who  get  on  that  one  track and  realize  a  bit  too  late,  oh,  that's  not  for  me. And  then  they  like,  yeah,  then  what? Then  they  have  a  bit  of  an  extent  crisis  for  sure. What  I'm  hearing  is  that  it  wasn't A  is  going  to  get  me  to  B, which  is  going  to  get  me  to it's  rather  A  is  going  to  provide an  opportunity  for  me  for  XY  and  Z,  right?  Yeah. Or  provide  exposure  to  learn  about  Z, which  I  didn't  even  know  existed  to begin.  Yeah,  very  cool. I  think  the  way  that  I  thought  about my  capstone  again  was  this  is  a  vehicle to  bolster  my  resume  for  medical  school. And  spoiler  for  the  end  of  this  podcast. I  didn't  go  to  medical  school  and  I'm  not  a  medical  Dr. But  at  the  same  time, I  did  not  get  a  job  through  my  capstone  by  any  means. However,  I  think  that  it  enriched  my  CV  in  a  way, but  it  also  gave  me  a  perspective  of  the  world  and allowed  me  to  pursue  things  that  I realized  through  that,  that  I  was  interested  in. So  what  I  did  for  my  Capstone, which  I  wouldn't  necessarily  recommend  doing everything  because  I'm  not  sure it's  useful  to  do  absolutely  everything. But  first,  the  summer  between  my  junior  and  senior  year, I  reached  out  to  a  nonprofit  in Ecuador  and  set  up  a  research  project  with  them, where  they  essentially  helped me  recruit  study  participants. I  did  key  informant  interviews  around  the  country  with health  professionals  to  understand the  barriers  in  access  to  health  care. So  it  was  a  qualitative  study. How  did  you  find  that  internship  opportunity? Google.com  And  it  wasn't  an  internship  either. The  summer  before.  Actually,  I can  go  back  the  summer  before. I  had  spent  doing  volunteer  work  in  Kenya. That  was  more  for  me. I  was  interested  in  traveling  but  also  like  doing something  that  I  could continue  to  explore  the  medical  field. That  also  was  through  Google.com  I  found I  don't  even  want  to  say  it  was a  program  because  it  wasn't  even  that  structured. It  was  more  like  we'll  place  you  with  a  host  family, we'll  introduce  you  to  a  local  district  hospital, and  they  will  set  you  up  with  a  volunteer  opportunity. Through  that  experience,  I  realized,  okay, it's  actually  a  bit  easier  to go  abroad  and  explore  my  interests. I  decided  to  design  my  capstone  around  that. The  next  summer  when  I  went  to  Ecuador, I  really  just  I  Googled. What  were  the  nonprofits  that  had  language  programs? Because  I  was  interested  in  improving  my Spanish  and  had  some  level of  connection  with  clinics  around the  country  and  some  level  a  national  spread. I  reached  out  to  the  Executive  Director. I  said,  listen,  I'm interested  in  designing  this  research  project. Have  you  ever  worked  with  any  student  researchers  before? He,  at  the  time  said  yeah,  he  had, but  they  didn't  have  much  connection  with  universities. The  traditional  IRB  approval, which  is  like  the  body  that oversees  rubber  stamping  research  projects, I  knew  probably  was  not  in  the  cards  for  this  project. I  worked  with  some  professors  that  UMR, to  make  sure  that  the  research  itself  would be  non  invasive  enough  to  not  need  IRB  approval. So  I  think  it  was  framed as  a  quality  improvement  project, but  it  gave  me  the  exposure  to health  care  in  a  foreign  country and  the  ability  to  dissect, really  how  a  health  health  system  worked, which  is  what  I  was  interested  in  at  the  time. I  spent  the  summer  basically  traveling  around  Ecuador, improving  my  Spanish  and  interviewing healthcare  workers  about  what  they perceived  to  be  barriers  and  access  to  care. Was  that  difficult? Was  it  something  you  felt like  you  had  to  step  out  of  your  comfort  zone  to  do? Yeah.  I  mean,  it's  just  no  one  wants  to  look  like an  idiot  and  look like  they  don't  know  what  they're  doing. But  that's  really  how  you  find  these  things, is  to  just  suck  up  your  pride  and  ask as  many  people  as  possible  and eventually  you'll  be  guided  in  the  right  direction. I  can't  tell  you  how  many  rejections I've  had  on  many  of  things  that  I've  tried  to  pursue. I  feel  like  this  is  going  to  be  the  sound  bit that  they  use  in  the  beginning  of  the  broadcast. Yeah,  we'll  see  what  happens. The  rejections.  My  middle  name? Yeah.  Yeah,  that  ended  up  working  out  fine. It  didn't  go  in  my  mind  when  I  designed  it. I  was  going  to  do  this  big  robust  research  project. I  was  going  to  publish  all  these  things, But  I  had  to  scale  that  back  because  like IRB  approval  wasn't  feasible. And  a  lot  of  the  interviews  were  in  Spanish. And  my  Spanish  was  not  good  enough  to  I  did  it, I  translated  them  and  whatnot, but  it  wasn't  the  quality  that, you  know,  was  publishable  by  any  means. Were  you  denied  or  said  Plenty  of  Yeah. Plenty  of  people  that  I  met  in  Ecuador  were  like,  no, I  don't  have  time  for  this  Yeah, Just  yes,  but  here  we  are  at  your  capstone  then. So  what  else  did  you  do  as  part  of  that? Yes.  So  that  was  the  first  phase  of, it  was  a  summer  in  Ecuador  doing  that. And  the  way  that  I  had  conceived  of  this  research  project was  I  wanted  to  do  a  comparison  of Bearers  experienced  in  accessing healthcare  in  the  United  States. Actually,  the  reason  I  chose  in  Ecuador  was  because more  about  feasibility  of  targeting  a  population, an  immigrant  population  in  the  US. Like  what  I  had  conceived  in  my  mind  was the  conditions  before  immigrating  and the  conditions  after  immigrating  again, lots  of  googling,  lots  of  sifting  through  census  data, I  realized  that  one  of  the  highest  concentrations  of Ecuadorian  immigrants  is  in  a  borough  in  New  York  City. I  had  planned  to  do  data  collection  in  Ecuador, and  then  was  going  to  do the  same  type  of  data  collection  in New  York  because  I  had  signed  up  to do  a  student  exchange  at  Queens  College. When  I  was  nearing  the  end  of  my  time  in  Ecuador, I  had  started  to  reach  out  to  clinicians  in  New  York. That's  when  a,  a  lot  more  rejections were  coming  through  that  made  me  quite  nervous. Because  what  I  had  designed  this  capstone  around  was like  this  two  phase  research  project. Yeah,  in  the  back  of  my  mind  I  was  like, what  am  I  going  to  do  if  I  get  to  New  York  and no  one  will  talk  to  me  and  let  me  do  this  research? I  applied  for  a  bunch  of  internships as  a  backup  plan  and  I  ended  up  getting  two  of  them. So  lucky,  lucky  you  worked  hard  for  that. Well,  but  it's  also  like  cast  a  wide  net. Right.  Because  I  can't tell  you  how  many  rejections  I  had. Right.  If  I  hadn't  been  nimble  at  the  time. Because  I  ended  up  doing  no interviews  at  all  in  New  York. I  just  focused  on  those  two  internships  instead, when  I  did  the  write  up  for  capstone  work, the  research  piece  was  just  on  Ecuador. And  then  I  was  able  to  loosely  tie those  internship  experiences  with a  reflection  on  my  time  in  Ecuador  too. The  two  internships  were, one  was  at  the  Latino  Commission  on Aids  that  was  very  focused  on  research. Again,  I  was  in  their  research  department. And  then  the  other  one  was  at the  Council  on  Foreign  Relations in  their  Global  health  program. So  you  had  traveled  prior  to your  capstone  experience  that being  traveling  to  Kenya  for  a  summer? Yeah.  Was  that  your  first  taste  of,  you  know, going  abroad  and  doing  work  or  volunteering, or  The  first  time  I  went abroad  was  the  summer  after my  senior  year  of  high  school. I  was  a  Midwestern  ambassador  of  music. Oh,  I  played  the  saxophone. Oh,  you  sang  in  the  choir? And  so  where  did  you  go  to  play  your  saxophone? All  over  Europe.  Oh,  wow,  yeah,  Yeah. So  that  was  the  first  time  I've  ever  gone  abroad, was  when  I  was  like  18, right  this  summer  before  I  went  to  UMR. Actually  loved  it  was looking  for  every  opportunity  to  go  abroad  again. And  so  that's  what  kind  of  sparked  the  idea  about  Kenya. Yeah,  yeah. So  you  just  found  that  opportunity for  the  Midwestern  ambassadors  of  music? Oh,  no,  For  Kenya. Oh,  yeah. Yeah. On  the  Google  machine. Gotcha.  Wow.  Google  is such  a  good  friend  of  yours,  I  know. Yeah. It's  got  me  through  a  lot, but  it's  really  projected  what  you've  done  with your  career  and  your  desire  to  be  abroad. You  know,  I  think  about we've  known  each  other  for  x  amount  of  years, over  a  decade  and  half  of that  time.  Now  you've  been  abroad? Wow,  it  has  been  a  half  now. Yeah.  Yeah.  I  mean, what  is  it  that  you  love  about working  abroad?  Being  abroad? Should  I  describe  what  I  do? Sure. So  should  I  describe  the  entire  art  maybe. Okay,  let's  back  up  real  quick  and  put a  little  bow  on  your  capstone  experience. I  mean,  that's  a  lot  to  bite  off  and  do. A  kind  of  as a  pioneer  of  the  first  graduating  class  of  UMR, one  large  chunk  of  it  was  a  failure. Thug.  I  never  did  that.  Data  collection. Okay.  Yes.  And  so  it  came  down  to, you  know,  you  cast  this  white  net. You  talked  about  you  were  able  to pursue  opportunities  in  Ecuador  and  in  New  York, but  some  of  it  didn't  pan  out  the  way  you  wanted  to. Was  it  a  piecemeal,  I'm  going  to  make  this  square  peg  fit into  a  round  hole  or  how  did you  end  up  summarizing  that  opportunity? It  was  when  I  encountered  the  round  hole, I  just  found  more  square  pegs around  me  that  were  close  and  then  made  the  connection. The  link  between  Ecuador  was  I explored  what  a  healthcare  system  looked  like. One  of  the  internships was  Latino  Commission  on  Aids  Serving. Ecuadorians  are  a  subpopulation of  that  served  by  that  nonprofit. I  learned  from  an  epidemic  in  New  York  City  area. I  learned  about  the  kind  of barriers  and  access  that  Latinos face  generally  when  trying  to  seek  HIV  Aids  services. And  I  was  able  to  build  more  research  skills because  I  got  to  do  interviews, but  for  a  different  reason. More  HIV  prevention  outreach  campaigns  kind  of  stuff. But  then  but  really  what  got  me What  got  me  excited  and  moving  towards  my  next  step was  that  other  internship at  the  Council  on  Foreign  Relations, because  that  was  much high  level  diplomacy  in  the  global  health  space that  provided  exposure  to  actually  one  of the  big  projects  that  I  worked on  was  dual  use  research  of  concern, which  is  basically  doing  research  to  make, I  think  the  case  study  was viruses  more  virulent  in  a  lab  setting, which  has  been  a  topic  of  conversation  recently  as  well. And  that's  something  that  the  international  community has  been  debating  for  years. Those  international  political  angles  of health  I  had  not  been  exposed  to  before  that  internship. And  that's  really  what  the  catalyst. Yeah.  That  was  the  catalyst  for  me continuing  to  pursue  both  public  health but  like  international  public  health. And  perhaps  the  catalyst  that drove  the  last  nail  into  the  coffin  of  medical  school. Yeah.  Yeah.  Because  up  until  then, when  I  was  going  to  New  York,  it  was  all  All  right, well  this  is  the  last  hurrah. Then  I'm  going  to  saddle  in for  a  lot  more  studying  and  go  to  medical  school. That  was  a  lot.  I  mean,  I  remember,  you  know, hanging  out  on  the  weekends  and  we'd  come into  your  apartment  and  you'd  be  studying  for  the  M  cat. Yep.  Because  that  is  the  level  of  commitment that  students  know  they  need for  applying  to  medical  schools.  Right? Yeah.  And  I  ended  up  not  applying. Hmm.  So  I  decided  that  was  not  for  me. Was  that  a  hard  pill  to  swallow?  No  pun  intended. Yeah.  Well,  yes  it  was. Because  you  worked  so  hard  for  it  for a  long  time  with  that  vision  in  mind?  Yeah. Yeah.  But  I  mean,  that hard  work  hard  work  towards  anything  doesn't  go  wasted. You  can  always  pivot  that  energy  towards  something  else. If  you  have  worked  really  hard  at  something, chances  are  you  have  developed a  lot  of  skills  and  experience that  are  transferable  in  some  way  to  something  adjacent. Public  health  is  very  adjacent  to clinical  medicine  and  so  that  pivot  wasn't  a  challenge. And  I  had  actually  set  myself  up  really  well for  career  opportunities  after  graduation, joined  the  University  of  Minnesota, Rochester  on  Saturday, June  17  from  Peace  Plaza  for a  celebration  honoring  Umar's  class  of 2013  and  the  decades long  push  to  bring  a  UFM  campus  to  the  city  of  Rochester. Festivities  will  kick  off  shortly  before  05:00  P.M.  with the  University  of  Minnesota  Marching band  leading  the  way. Featured  speakers  to  include  UMR  Chancellor  Lori  Carroll, Former  Minnesota  Governor  Tim  Plenti, Former  UFM  President  Bob  Bruni, Chancellor  Emeritus  Stephen  Lemke, and  UM  R  Alumni  Evan  Doyle.  We  hope  to  see  you  there. So  in  doing  some  research  on  you,  Evan, I  did  notice  that  kind  of  your  first  exposure to  monitoring  and  evaluation was  in  that  capstone  experience. And  that  is  part  of  your  title  currently, right  at  the  Global  Fund, You  are  an  advisor, policy  and  M  and  E  advisor. How  do  you  say  your,  so  I  work  for the  Global  Fund  to  fight  Aids,  TB,  and  Malaria. We're  an  international  organization based  in  Geneva,  Switzerland. Basically,  the  way  that  I  think  about  it  is it's  an  efficient  mechanism for  moving  money  from  rich  countries  to poor  countries  to  fight  those  three  diseases. I  joined  about  2.5  years ago  now  to  develop  the  new  strategy. It's  a  six  year  strategy. That  six  year  strategy  covers about  just  over  $30,000,000,000  allocation. After  developing  the  strategy, I  moved  over  to  developing monitoring  and  evaluation  framework. That's  what  M  and  E  stands  for,  right? Which  is  basically  how  are  we  going to  measure  performance  against the  strategy  so  that  we  can say  quantitatively  or  qualitatively, that  we're  achieving  the  goals  of  our  strategy. That's  what  I've  been  doing  for  the  last  year. Now  just  recently, I'm  pivoting  over  to  more  general  policy  work. My  official  title  is Advisor  in  Policy  and  M  and  E.  But  I  think  going  forward, I  got  to  be  a  bit  more  focused  on  just  policy  of  advice. After  graduating  from  UMR, I  worked  for  a  couple  of  years in  St.  Paul  for  a  small  research  company, shouted  to  offed  associates, He  gained  a  lot  of  skills, more  research  skills,  just  general  professional  skills. How  to  work  in  an  office  setting. How  to  work  in  a  client  facing  setting. And  then  after  those  two  years, I  went  to  get  my  Master's  in Public  Health  at  the  London  School  of Hygiene  and  Tropical  Medicine. How  did  you  choose  that  college? Wanted  to  move  abroad. Ls  HTM  is  what  the  acronym  is. It's  really  great.  Public  health  school. Yeah.  When  I  looked  at  the  Big  Venn  diagram  of  abroad, expertise  in  public  health  and  affordability, HTM  fit  right  there  in  the  middle. Because  the  other  angle  for  anyone who's  ever  considering  going abroad  and  doing  a  degree  abroad  is  you can  do  a  Master's  degree  in  one  year  rather  than  two. And  they're  typically  cheaper  than  in  the  US. And  it's  well  received  within  the  United  States. Yeah,  it's a  very  good  public  health  school  I  have  in  the  US. I  have  not  worked  in  the  United  States  since  graduating. But  yeah,  I  have  friends  who  went  to  LSHTM, did  the  same  degree  as  me,  and  some  are working  for  US  CDC  right  now  or  working  for Departments  of  Health.  Yeah,  through  my  Masters. Typically  with  a  Master's  program,  you  do  a  thesis. And  again,  the  capstone  experience  at  UMR. Well,  I  had  many  classmates  in  grad  school  who were  very  stressed  out  about  the  thesis because  you  have  to  essentially  design  a  project. I  did  not  find  it  very  stressful  at  all because  I  had  just  gone  through  it  at  UMR, again,  UMR  was  so  flexible  on  what  I  could  design. I  had  designed  a  massive  project, it  felt  a  little  easier  in a  Master's  program  because  they  were  much more  specific  on  the  requirements  of  it. What  I  designed  thesis  around was  at  the  time  if  the  United  Kingdom  was considering  revising  its  policy  on blood  donation  for  the technical  term  is  men  who  have  sex  with  men. But  it's  essentially  gained  bisexual  men  historically, especially  after  the  Aids  crisis  in  the  '90s, men  who  have  sex  with  men  were completely  barred  from  donating  blood. Not  just  in  the  United  Kingdom, but  in  the  United  States  as  well. And  around  the  world.  That  policy  was  revised in  the  early  2000  to  be  a  one  year  deferral  policy. Meaning  that  if  you  are  MSM, you've  had  sex  with  someone  else  within  the  last  year, you  cannot  donate  blood. It  was  a  window  of  opportunity because  I  was  very  interested  in understanding  up  close  how  policy  reform  happened, how  policy  reviews  happened,  how  reform  could  happen, and  the  evidence  that's  used  to  reform  policy. I  reached  out  to  the  group  that was  mandated  to  review  that  policy. I  had  a  ton  of  coffees  with people  all  over  London  to  understand  the, all  the  angles  of  what  would  go  into  that  policy  review. I  looked  at  the  terms  of  reference and  I  designed  my  thesis around  answering  those  questions that  the  policy  review  would  ask. Through  that  experience,  I  was  able  to  feed my  findings  from  my  thesis  into  that  policy  review. And  they  ended  up  revising  that  policy. Actually  do,  they  didn't  revise  it fully  to  what  my  recommendations  were  at  the  time. I  think  they  revised  it  to a  four  month  deferral.  This  was  2016. Now,  I  think  a  couple  of  years  ago, they  have  gone  all  the  way  and  revised it  to  what  my  original  policy  recommendations  had  been. Now  they  have  a  behavior  based deferral  policy  after  graduate  school, I  was  interested  in moving  back  into  more  low  and  middle  income  settings, country  settings,  and  working with  governments  working  on  health  policy  still, and  eventually  moving  back  into  HIV  prevention. That  was  an  interest  that  you  wanted  to  continue? Yeah,  yeah.  That  angle  between  human  rights, between  policy,  evidence  based  policy  making. I  really  had  gotten  a  taste  for it  and  I  wanted  to  continue  with  that. After  graduate  school,  I joined  an  organization  called the  Clinton  Health  Access  Initiative. It's  a  nonprofit  that  basically  works  with  governments  in low  and  middle  income  countries  on developing  and  implementing  health  policy. My  first  job  with  them  was in  a  small  country  called  Eswatini. It's  a  country  in  Southern  Africa. I  worked  on  their  health  financing  program. Basically  finding  efficiency  opportunities for  scaling  up  their  universal  health  coverage  policy. A  lot  of  work  on  supply  chains, making  sure  that  drugs  were accessible  at  health  facilities. My  big  thing  at  the  time was  infection  prevention  and  control. Actually,  my  big  push  was  let's  get soap  and  paper  towels  in  all  the  hospitals, which  we  were  moderately  successful  at. But  a  lot  of  the  work  that  we  did  at  the  time, which  was  in  2018, was  used  in  2020, when  at  the  drop  of  a  hat, the  entire  country  needed  to  get as  much  soap  to  health  facilities  as  possible. I  spent  a  couple  of  years  doing  that, and  then  I  moved  over  to a  regional  role  in  Johannesburg,  South  Africa. I  was  a  regional  manager on  the  Global  HIV  Prevention  Program. My  job  was  to  work  with  primarily  four  countries, South  Africa,  Malawi,  Zimbabwe,  and  Kenya, on  introducing  and  scaling  oral  pre  exposure  prophylaxis, or  Prep  is  what  we  call  it, which  is  the  pill  that  if  you  take it  every  day  and  prevents  HIV. Yeah.  Most  of  it  was  a  bit  of  a  hectic  job  because  I  was traveling  to  I  was  in a  different  country  every  other  week. So  a  lot  of  the  things  I  did  was  I would  go  and  work  with  governments  on figuring  out  what  did the  policy  environment  need  to look  like  in  order  to  introduce  this  product? Were  the  supply  chains  working? Were  we  procuring  the  right  amount  of  drugs? How  could  we  quantify  to  save money  on  different  health  products  and  drugs? Training  healthcare  workers  to make  sure  that  they  knew  how  to  deliver  the  drugs. How  big  was  your  team? I  was  the  only  one  in  my  regional  role, but  each  of  those  four  countries  had three  to  four  staff  that  I  was  working  with  directly. It's  that  12. Okay. Yeah. Did  you  find  that  it  was  hard  to  grapple with  just  access  to  resources  and this  desire  to  put things  that  honestly  we  take  for granted  here  in  the  US  health  care  system, soap  and  paper  towels  into  hospital  settings. Yeah,  it  was  stressful because  it  was  in  an  area  that the  global  community  had  agreed for  years  was  very  important. It  just  wasn't  important  on  paper.  Well,  yeah. As  a  public  health  community  have  known  that HIV  Aids  a  decade  ago,  HIV  now. Because  largely  we  as a  global  community  have  gotten  our  arms  around  Aids. Thankfully,  people  are  not  dying  in as  great  a  number  of  Aids  as  they  previously  were, but  people  are  being  infected  at very  alarming  rates  of  HIV  every  day. Mm  hm.  And  this  was  a  pill  that if  just  taken  every  day  could  prevent  HIV. So  I  found  it  exhausting  and  frustrating  because  we, as  a  global  community,  we  knew  that  this was  something  that  could  really  make  a  difference. And  there  was  money  available  for  aspects  of  it. But  oftentimes  the  response wasn't  joined  up  and  well  coordinated. And  a  lot  of  my  job  was  just trying  to  get  all  the  dots  together. Yes,  to  make  a  connection  back  to  UMR, I  actually  found  the  connections that  we  were  often  making  across  coursework and  that  aversion  to  working in  silos  and  working  in  isolation  and thinking  in  a  cross  disciplinary  way to  be  really  beneficial  to  the  way  that  I  worked. Because  as  I've  progressed  through  my  career, I've  noticed  that  that's not  the  natural  tendency  of  a  lot  of  people  in their  fields  become  experts  in their  given  area  and  are very  comfortable  to  stay  in  that  little  box. Right.  But  there  often  isn't an  incentive  to  work  across  lines  in  that  way. So,  was  it  well  received? Yeah,  I  just  to  take South  Africa  as  an  example,  we  were  successful. I  built  a  model,  thanks  Dr.  Huck  for  teaching  me  Excel. I  built  a  model  to basically  make  the  financial  case  for  scaling. Prep.  Scaling,  meaning  putting prep  in  all  clinics  in  the  country. Public  clinics.  There  were  about 3,500  clinics  at  the  time. There  were  about  100  clinics  that  were  providing  prep. We  wanted  to  put  it  in  all  of them  that  made  the  financial  case  to  do  it. We  were  able  to  convince the  Treasury  to  make  that  domestic  investment. We  got  the  go  ahead  in  November  or  no, it  was  October  2019. Then  we  went  all  steam  ahead  to  scale. We  got  I  think  just  through  phase  two  of  scaling, that  was  just  over  1,000 clinics  in  like  a  four  month  period. And  then  Covid  hit,  huh? A  lot  of  our  work  just  got  pivoted  towards the  Covid  response  at  that  time. That  was  when  I,  myself needed  to  think  through  a  pivot  for  my  career. Because  a  lot  of  public  health  programs, as  important  as  the  covid  response  was, public  health  in  general  has  been a  chronically  underfunded  field and  it  was  like  a  drop  everything. And  this  is  what  we're  focusing  on. Yes.  Right.  So  that's  really  what catalyzed  my  move  to  global  fund  After  that. I  still  keep  in  touch  with my  friends  and  colleagues  in  South  Africa  in particular  because  that's  put  so  much  blood, sweat,  and  tears  into  that  program because  they've  continued  to  scale. And  now  I  believe  they've  passed  3,000  clinics. So  we're  very  happy  about  that  uptake. If  you  look  at  there's  an  exponential  curve in  uptake  a  prep  now. Yeah,  the  program  is  doing  very  well. It  just  really,  we  hit  a  real  barrier  when  Covid  hit, it's  time  for  me  to  move  onto  at  that  point. Nonetheless,  it  was  able  to  be  picked  up again  after  the  covid  scare  had, you  know,  put  a  little  more  under  control. Right.  Yeah.  I  mean,  it's  amazing  too, to  think  that  all  that  progress  that  you  had  prior to  the  pre  pandemic  was  able  to  continue  after. Mm  hm.  Yeah.  Well,  and  that's the  thing  about  public  health,  I'm  biased. I  think  some  of  the  best  people  work  in  public  health. People  are  just  really  passionate,  really  smart. And  just  because,  you  know, we  might  encounter  in our  respective  focus  areas  in  public  health  a  setback, that  doesn't  necessarily  mean that  that  priority  goes  away. There  are  still  really  passionate, hardworking  people  continue  to  advocate  for  those  areas. Those  priorities  will  continue  to  be  advanced, and  we've  seen  that  in  prep  programs  around  the  world. We  now  we  have new  prep  products  that  are  a bit  more  long  acting  so  you  don't have  to  take  pills  every  single  day. That  are  coming  down  the  pipeline. So  the  future  is  very  bright  for  HIV  prevention. M  then,  have  we  talked  yet about  what  you  currently  do  within  your  role? Yeah. Like  I  said,  yeah, join  global  fund  to  work  on  the  strategy. But  generally,  I  think  my  role  both  on  strategy  M  and  E, and  policy,  the  day  to  day,  is  quite  the  same. Those  really  high  level, globally  focused  roles  are, It's  a  lot  of  diplomacy  skills, a  lot  of  stakeholder  coordination, just  get  things  done. A  lot  of  what  I  do  is an  agenda  defining  an  outcome  that  we  need  to  get  to. Project  management.  Yeah.  A  lot of  project  management  skills. A  lot  of  bringing  people along  the  way,  building  consensus. A  lot  of  things  that  we  did  at  Morrow, building  the  first  student  government. And  on  the  policy  side  now, that's  mostly  what  I'm  going  to  be  working  on. Where  global  funds  at  on  the  funding  cycle. Now  we  have  just  over  100  recipient  countries that  will  be  applying  for  funding  for  this  next  round. This  will  be  coming  out  in  the  next  few  months. During  that  period,  various  policy  related  issues will  come  up  when  applications  come through  and  I'll  be  supporting  on  figuring out  the  eligibility  of countries  to  receive  funding  for  their  programs. Do  you  have  any  advice  for  students  who  are looking  to  study  abroad  in  the  future?  Work  abroad? My  advice  is  not convinced  of  the  boxes  that  society  puts  you  in. Just  because  when  you  flip through  the  different  options  for  study  abroad  programs, if  what  you  want  to  do  isn't  in that  catalog  that  you're  looking through  or  if  the  country  is  not  on  the  list, don't  interpret  that  as like  this  is  your  only  options,  you  can't  do  that. I  never  did  a  formal  study  broad  program. And  not  to  knock  the  study  abroad  programs,  I  know  that. I  know  people  who  did  them  and they  really  found  them  valuable  and  they  loved  it. Actually,  it  takes  a  shortcut  for  a  lot  of things  they  wouldn't  have  had  to  go  through as  stress  as  me  sometimes, like  getting  stranded  in  random, tiny  villages  and  like  having  to  figure  out  how to  find  transport  back  to  civilization. I  don't  think  that's  University  condoning.  Yeah,  Right. But  like  in  my  case,  I  didn't  see  barriers. What  I  was  interested  in  wasn't  readily  apparent. I  would  find  a  way  to  do  it. You  know,  there  aren't  as  many  rules  to life  as  you  know  you  might  think  there  are. Just  because  you  don't  have  a  template  for  it  in front  of  you  doesn't  mean  that  a  template  doesn't  exist. So  you  should  always  like  ask  other  people,  do  googling. Don't  be  afraid  to  just  buy a  plane  ticket  to  a  random  country  and  go  yourself. Because  generally  things  will  work  out. How  do  you  navigate,  you  know,  feelings  of  doubt? I  think  it's  important  to  stay grounded  with  your  friends  at  all  walks  of  life. For  me,  I've  lived  in four  countries  in  the  last  six  years now  and  five  countries, actually,  if  you  call  the  United  States, have  made  really  great  friends  all  along  the  way. I  found  it  really  grounding  to always  keep  in  close  contact with  my  friends  and  my  family. But  usually  my  friends are  following  a  little  bit  more  closely  like what  is  going  on  in  my  life.  I'm  not  sure. I  don't  know  that  you  ever  fully  get  over impostor  syndrome  because  for  me, it  every,  you  know, challenge  that  I  encounter  or new  network  that  I break  into  that  I  didn't  really  know  existed, I  look  around  and  I  question  like,  okay, well  this  can't  actually  be  all  the  people that  are  doing  these  really  important  things. Certainly  I  can't  be  one  of  the  people that's  responsible  for  doing  this  really  important  thing. Like  I  don't  know, someone  made  a  mistake. But  what  I've  learned  along  the  way is  people  are  just  people  everywhere. If  you  work  hard,  you  don't  even  have  to  be  that  smart. If  you  work  hard,  and  if  you're  nice, persevere  through  things  generally, those  are  the  people  that  run  the  world. Really  thank  you  to Evan  and  Rachel  for their  quite  thorough  conversation and  thank  you  for  listening  to  Beyond  the  Nest. Um  R's  alumni  podcast  Beyond  the  Nest  is  produced  by UMR  Alumni  Relations  and  edited  by Marshall  Saunders  of  Minnesota Podcasting  Beyond  the  Nest, we'll  be  taking  a  couple  months  off  for some  much  needed  rest  and  recuperation, but  we'll  be  back  in  September  with an  all  new  season  until  then  to  Lou.