SPH Graduate Selected for Fulbright Award.
Charlotte Greenhill, a graduate of Boston University's 4+1 program with a bachelor's degree in Latin American studies and an MPH with concentrations in global health and epidemiology and biostatistics from the School of Public Health, received a prestigious English Teaching Assistantship to Brazil.
SPH Graduate Selected for Fulbright Award
Charlotte Greenhill, a graduate of Boston University’s 4+1 program with a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies and an MPH with concentrations in global health and epidemiology and biostatistics from the School of Public Health, received a prestigious English Teaching Assistantship to Brazil.
Charlotte Greenhill has long aspired to study abroad. Enrolled in a dual-language immersion school growing up in San Francisco, she became fluent in her second language, Spanish, at a young age.
“I think developing that language fluency influenced how I see the world and what I was curious about learning,” says Greenhill, who graduated on May 18 from Boston University’s 4+1 program with a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies and an MPH with concentrations in global health and epidemiology and biostatistics from the School of Public Health.
During her five years at BU, Greenhill partook in a variety of linguistic and cultural activities. However, like many college students who matriculated in or after 2019, she was ultimately forced to defer her dream of studying abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next year, she will finally embark on the international adventure she has been working towards since childhood with a prestigious Fulbright award to teach English in Brazil.
Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international and cultural exchange program. Through partnerships with more than 140 countries worldwide, Fulbright grants offer select graduating college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals the opportunity to pursue graduate study, conduct research, or teach English abroad. Fulbright scholars become part of a global network intended to foster mutual understanding and peaceful relations between nations.
As an undeclared first-year student, Greenhill says she was initially drawn to Latin American studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies because the program’s diverse course load would enable her to take language, international relations, humanities, and social sciences classes, seamlessly complementing her central goal of studying abroad. Her plans changed when COVID-19 forced the suspension of BU’s more than 70 study abroad programs in 15 countries for five semesters in a row.
Back in San Francisco, living with her parents under lockdown during the time period when she had originally planned to study abroad, Greenhill instead pursued a minor in Portuguese and spent several summers honing her teaching skills as a high school math tutor. The experiences later formed the groundwork for her Fulbright application, she says.
“I got really invested and fell in love with Brazilian culture,” says Greenhill, who met many Brazilian American friends at BU and went on to live in Global House, BU’s living-learning community for students passionate about languages and cultures. There, she practiced Portuguese with peers during weekly meetings and frequented local Brazilian community events, such as an annual Brazilian Independence Day Festival in Allston. She also took samba classes, assisted one of her political science professors in conducting a research survey of Brazilian Bostonians, and wrote her undergraduate honors thesis on the promotion of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial medication, and ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug, in Brazil during the pandemic.
“When I was thinking about Fulbright, I definitely would have been interested in a Spanish-speaking country in Latin America as well, but it seemed like Brazil would be the best fit for me. For one, because it gives me the opportunity to solidify Portuguese fully as my third language and in a professional context, and [because] it was something that I have worked for and developed over time and grown an affection for,” says Greenhill. “Also, from a public health standpoint, there is a lot to learn from the Brazilian health system. I am excited—it is going to be so much fun!”
While Greenhill has visited South America with her brother as a tourist, her eight-month Fulbright teaching assistantship beginning in March 2025 will be her first time both living and working abroad. She spoke with SPH about how her experience as an MPH student and how her Fulbright plans jibe with her long-term career aspirations in public health.
Q&A
With Charlotte Greenhill (Pardee’23, SPH’24)
How did you become interested in public health?
In high school, I got to work closely with our athletic trainer, Gina Biviano. She was really great about mentoring students who were interested in the health professions broadly—some people wanted to do PT [physical therapy] or become physicians or whatnot, and so once a week, we would meet in her tiny little office off the locker room, see athletes, and help tape ankles, do rehab, etcetera. So, I had that rich experience with a mentor that I admired, but academically, I really liked my language classes, my social science classes, math, and less the hard sciences, chemistry-, physics-type classes. I think, because I like learning in general, I gravitate to teachers that inspire me rather than to specific content, and I happened to have great teachers in history and languages.
I was attracted to public health because it is more systems-level thinking, and I resonate with the goal of health prevention, health promotion, and population-level interventions as opposed to treating people after they are hurt. I saw that in the high school opportunity that I had with [Biviano] where it felt like we were always treating athletes after they had pushed themselves to the limit and gotten injured, and there was a need for more collaboration with coaches to develop robust injury-prevention and strengthening programs.
[Biviano] had a peer with an MPH from Boston University, so I did an informational interview and learned more from her about what it looked like. Then, I just did my own research [and] poking around on the BU website, I found that the 4+1 offers a BA/MPH so you could be in the College of Arts and Sciences—you did not have to have a health science or human physiology background. The BA/MPH gave you a lot of flexibility on what your undergrad could look like. Once the pandemic hit, that really solidified for my family and other people who knew that I had this interest, like, “Oh, this is what public health is. It touches all of our lives.” It made it easier, I think, to talk about this interest that I had and my plan for the future.
What advice would you give to other students in the 4+1 program or who are interested in the 4+1 program?
Something that was really big for me was I was stressed about getting a practicum the summer after graduating from my undergrad. But at the time, I did not feel like a competitive candidate because I had only completed the core courses, and so I had not gotten to the functional, more skills-based coursework yet. In the end, I ended up landing a job as a math teacher for SEO, a college access program for high school students, which worked out because that experience became a big component of my Fulbright application. Then, I found a practicum with the Academic Public Health Corps to do during the school year, so I think, for 4+1 students, you can go at your own pace and doors open when they need to.
Could you elaborate on what you will be doing as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) next year?
It varies country to country, but Fulbright ETAs in Brazil are placed in universities. So, I will be working with education majors, folks that are training to become teachers, and I will be supporting the English classrooms there. From what I have learned speaking to other former ETAs, at least in Brazil, [is that] beyond classroom support, you are also responsible for running English clubs, maybe book clubs or holiday-themed events, and different community engagement activities around the English language.
What are you most looking forward to about your Fulbright to Brazil and how does it fit into your future aspirations in public health?
I think languages are like a portal. They allow for you to connect with people who have a different life experience than you and to engage with books and media from other countries, and I think that that makes me a stronger public health professional. So, teaching English for a year in Brazil is not a detour for me. It is a logical next step within my public health career and goals because I have seen what language learning has allowed for me, what opportunities it has opened up and just a different way of seeing the world. I really hope that I can support students in achieving their English language goals and fostering those conversations that make you reflect on aspects of your own culture and aspects of the culture that you are studying or the language that you are learning.
Then, the Fulbright ETA also gives time for supplemental projects because it is not a full-time role, and so with the time that you are not directly supporting students or lesson planning, you are expected to pursue a side project. For that, I definitely want to connect with public health professionals in my host city and start building [that network], learn from people, learn more on the ground about what public health work looks like in that context, and also pursue personal interests—I really enjoy dance and so I am excited to take dance classes [and] attend dance events. I know that beyond all of that, every single day, I will be learning Portuguese. I am going to be learning how to operate in a different country and a different context, so I am really excited for that because I love learning new phrases and just developing that confidence.
Charlotte Greenhill interned with SPH’s Marketing and Communications Office in Summer 2022 and wrote a handful of stories for the School, including the below profile of Shenaaz El-Halabi, director in the Office of the Director-General at the World Health Organization (SPH’00).
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