Yoshira Ornelas

PhD, Environmental Health Sciences

1. In one sentence, what is public health to you?

Is everyone’s responsibility. We can each do our part to keep ourselves, our community, and our world healthy.

2. What inspired you to study public health?

My community.

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

Being able to work on Environmental Justice Issues.

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

Focus on one issue at a time. At times it can feel like we are not making enough impact, but impact takes time.

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

Making sure that the communities we research are benefiting. There needs to be a push to have public studies published in open access journals and have these results also available in layman terms for our communities.