Student Spotlight - Ponnu Padiyara

After the last presidential election, Ponnu Padiyara and many of her classmates were dismayed at the anti-science atmosphere pervading the country. Inspired by a class in public health communications taught by Robert Bazell, former chief science and health correspondent for NBC News, she decided to take this on by breaking down public health research for the general public through podcasting.

“We have a building full of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” says Ponnu. Working with two classmates, Suhasini Ravi and Suraj Arshanapally, the group spent the first semester setting up an infrastructure that allows their work to be continued by future students. This semester, Public Health Decoded debuted with its first episode, featuring Professor Mark Schlesinger and Dr. Brad Richards, on “Medicare for All.” The second episode on the opioid epidemic will air before the end of term.

Ponnu’s interest in global health began during her Fulbright year in Turkey, where she volunteered on a side project that connected resettled Syrian refugees with medical care services. As a MPH Student in Chronic Disease Epidemiology, she’s delved into her interests in the intersection between global health and international law through courses in Global Health Concentration and Regulatory Affairs track. She interned at the World Health Organization last summer working on antimicrobial resistance policies. Still involved in that work, Ponnu assisted with a conference in Bangkok and country visit to Vietnam in February and has seen her first peer reviewed paper, “Global Governance Mechanisms for Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR),” published by the journal Infectious Disease: Research and Treatment.

Public Health Decoded on SoundCloud