Junaed Siddiqui

What inspired you to study public health?

Knowing that there’s an opportunity to harness rapidly evolving technologies to solve public health problems that have plagued the world for decades

What has been the single most rewarding experience of your career/studies so far?

Winning the APHA Public Health Codeathon in 2015! I was part of a team that designed a life expectancy calculator using seminal literature from public health. We designed an interactive web platform and app alongside it.

What is the one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were starting out in public health?

Don’t confine yourself to existing public health approaches. Think outside the box!

What do you think is the biggest challenge that the public health field should be focusing on?

We should be focusing on how to address xenophobia, racism, and discrimination as a country. Public health approaches can offer a unique perspective to these areas and allow us to rethink how we address them.