MPH Graduate Lands Prestigious CDC Internship

About a month before graduating, Harry Daniels-Schatz got some exciting news: he’d been selected for a prestigious Pathways Internship from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Harry will work this summer at the CDC and National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health’s Spokane Research Laboratory. He’ll be helping research the impact of stress levels and sleep patterns on the overall occupational health and safety of workers in the mining industry.

Harry says he was drawn to public health in part because “it’s sort of like being a detective.” He finds it invigorating to pinpoint the root causes and possible solutions for health issues that are impacting large segments of the population.

Harry’s main areas of interest in public health include epidemiology, global health, and health promotion/education. He got a wide sample of hands-on experience working in these areas during his time as an EWU MPH student.

Much of Harry’s research as an MPH student focused on the health needs of people living on the margins in Spokane. One research project he did focused on examining the impact of Hepatitis-C among the Spokane homeless population. In another project, he conducted an emergency preparedness survey in the city’s South Hill area that looked at the impact that education level within a household had on preparedness. Harry also helped Rockwood Clinic’s Midwifery Center develop a partnership with World Relief to offer pregnancy and women’s health education to former refugees living in Spokane as part of an MPH internship.

Harry credits the diversity of faculty and students in EWU’s MPH program for challenging him to look at public health challenges in new ways. He hopes to work internationally in a public health career, so he knows the diverse perspectives and experiences he got from his MPH at EWU will come in handy wherever his globe-trotting public health detective work takes him.