Student Spotlight – Sarah Weng

Sarah Weng’s vision is to be a disrupter. A student in the Accelerated MPH/MBA program, she is earning degrees from both the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Management (SOM) and envisions a career using principles from design thinking and innovation to address structural barriers to people’s ability to access health care.

During a service learning trip to Peru as an undergraduate, Sarah learned that many of the medical problems people encountered were broader public health issues, such as access to clean water, health education and preventive care. Clinical needs are often the downstream results of economics, policy and business models.

As a first job, she then delved into consulting, and learned how different players — biotechnology firms, payors, and health care providers — operate. “The power of business can do both good and damage,” says Sarah. “I believe we can create positive change through business.”

At Yale, Sarah has supplemented her classroom experience with extracurriculars that support this vision. She is deeply involved in the Design and Innovation Club at SOM where she has immersed herself in principles of human-centered design for healthcare’s stickiest problems. She also participated in MIINT, an impact investing lab, which helped her understand how to measure positive outcomes in healthcare when, paradoxically, profit is derived from the need for treatment, not successful prevention. Looking ahead, she’s looking forward to collaborating more with Tsai CITY and CBIT in the spring on their upcoming healthcare focused intensives.

“I feel fortunate to be in this joint program because Yale is so socially minded across both schools. It’s why I chose to come here,” said Sarah.