Student Wins Scholarship to Study Global Affairs in China.

School of Public Health student Omobolanle Adams has received a Yenching Academy Scholarship, which will enable her to pursue her public health interests in data analysis, minority health, racial justice, and equity. Yenching Academy, an interdisciplinary master’s program in China Studies at the renowned Peking University in Beijing, brings together young leaders and innovators in multiple fields to shape “a new generation of global citizens with a nuanced understanding of China and its role in the world.”

Despite current international travel restrictions, Adams is still set to begin the program in September, after completing the MPH program this summer.

Some of Adams’ earliest childhood memories are of public health practices that she would later implement herself. One of these memories is of government officials arriving at her home in Lagos, Nigeria to administer vaccinations. Adams didn’t know that this vaccination campaign was a public health intervention at the time.

Years later, after moving to the U.S. and earning a Bachelor’s degree in health education and promotion from Southeastern Louisiana University, Adams soon found herself going house-to-house just like the government officials administering vaccinations during her childhood. During an internship, she used motivational interviewing to talk to clients about their health and their access to social health care services in Louisiana. Adams then went on to become a certified health education specialist, leading her to pursue a Master of Public Health at SPH.

“One thing I would say is very similar in both situations in the US and back in Nigeria was the need for social resources and getting people access to those resources,” says Adams.

“My focus at Yenching will be on policy and international relations, specifically on Sino-African relations and how these relations can advance the development of public health and the healthcare industry in Africa, more particularly in my home country of Nigeria,” says Adams.

Adams has embraced the many opportunities that SPH offers to learn and ask questions, appreciates the opportunities to learn and ask questions, meet people from around the world, step into leadership roles, and hold conversations about the social determinants of health, racial justice, and equity. During her time at the school, she has served as the vice president for Mental Health Public Health Connections, treasurer and events coordinator for the Students of Color for Public Health, student representative for the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Group, facilitator for bystander intervention training in the Leadership and Management core course, and an Activist Bucks fellow for the Activist Lab.

“SPH opened my thought process and my understanding to think about public health in a different lens,” Adams says. “Regardless of the privilege the school or Yenching offers me, one thing I will always have in the back of my mind whenever I think about public health—or whenever I go into a community—is that I should always ask myself who is being left out.”

—Nicholas Diamond