Alumna Spotlight: Daniella Choi '12 Applied DGHI Lessons in the Peace Corps

Tippy Tap

Daniella (second from left) assisting in the demonstration of how to make a "tippy tap" (hands-free mechanism for handwashing)

Published October 20, 2015, last updated on June 3, 2020 under Alumni Stories

Daniella Choi had the opportunity to apply the lessons she learned through her global health coursework immediately after she graduated in 2012. At Duke she majored in public policy, with a global health certificate and a minor in international comparative studies.

Choi completed her certificate fieldwork in Moshi, Tanzania, where her experiences helped develop her interest in social enterprises. Her public policy internship took place at a global health thinktank. This work exposed Choi to the policy side of global health, and additionally showed her that she needed to get more firsthand experience in the field.

Her thesis advisor at Duke, global health and public policy professor Kathryn Whetten, had worked with the Peace Corps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an experience that Choi states gave her professor an obvious understanding of what went on in the field that translated to the classroom.

Choi’s interest in pursuing immersive fieldwork led her to join the Peace Corps immediately following her graduation, working as a community health specialist in The Gambia. Her work with the Peace Corps gave her the opportunity to see practices in the field and compare them to the lessons she had learned in her courses at Duke. Her DGHI coursework gave her the ability to think more critically about what was going on the field, seeing things she had learned in practice.

Choi’s experience working with the Peace Corps has developed her interest in health systems and health economics, an interest that began with a health economics course at Duke. Her time in The Gambia has shown her the importance of communication in global health work, and in particular the need for a more holistic outlook. 

Choi recently returned from her service and has started a new role as a child nutrition program specialist at USDA Food and Nutrition Service based in San Francisco, where she’s working to increase access to nutritious meals and improve eating habits for needy children and families. Choi has found it rewarding to apply her public policy skills to target childhood food insecurity domestically through meaningful school and summer meals programs. “While the range of problems we see here in the States is different from the under-five acute malnutrition I worked on in The Gambia, food insecurity is real and results in nutrition and achievement gaps,” Choi noted.

 

 

 

While the range of problems we see here in the States is different from the under-five acute malnutrition I worked on in The Gambia, food insecurity is real and results in nutrition and achievement gaps.

Daniella Choi, 2012 graduate of the DGHI global health certificate program