WOW Fellowship Blog Articles in June, 2021

(1) Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and the Massachusetts Child Welfare Coalition

I am working with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) to support their work with the Massachusetts Child Welfare Coalition. MLRI provides statewide advocacy and leadership to advance laws, policies, and practices that secure economic, racial, and social justice for low-income people and communities. They engage in multi-forum advocacy, meaning they work through impact litigation, legislative advocacy, advocacy with state agencies, and community lawyering. The focus on their child welfare advocacy is to ensure that the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) meets its mandate to do all that is possible to strengthen struggling families so that children can stay safely at home rather than being separated from their families and placed in foster care. When children must be separated from their parents, they advocate for policies to ensure that they are placed with their relatives rather than strangers, in family settings rather than institutional settings unless their treatment needs require institutional care, and that they be reunified with their parents as soon as safely possible.

Every aspect of their child welfare advocacy has a racial impact because Black and LatinX are disproportionately involved in the Massachusetts child welfare system, as they are in child welfare systems across the country. I am specifically working to support MLRI’s work with other child welfare advocates in the Massachusetts Child Welfare Coalition, which MLRI co-founded at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The coalition is currently working to oppose proposals to expand mandated reporting in Massachusetts, to increase child welfare data transparency, to improve educational access for children in DCF congregate care, and to increase housing and educational options for youth who age out of DCF foster care without permanent families.

I will support the coalition by attending the full coalition meetings and steering committee meetings, writing the coalition’s weekly newsletter, and supporting the activities of the Family Connections work group. I will be taking notes at many of these meetings and conducting research about communities of care and mutual aid networks in New York City to see how they could be a model for Massachusetts. My research project will further the coalition’s mission by gathering information that will inform its legislative advocacy. My research project is a small step that may fuel future conversations that coalition members have with each other, legislators, and the public as they look toward reimagining child welfare in the state. When it comes to social justice, progress often looks slow and is not always linear.

Within the context of my internship, progress looks like having conversations that center children and their families, especially those who are disproportionality effected by the child welfare system. My hope is that the voices of child welfare advocates and impacted families can be heard more so that Massachusetts can learn how to better support families who may be struggling.

Within the span of about a month, I have learned so much. I have gone from knowing little to none about child welfare to understanding various problems in the system and learning how legislative advocacy can help alleviate them for now–and ultimately eliminate them. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and cannot wait to learn more throughout the rest of the experience.

WOW Blog Post 1- Getting Started at Ariadne Labs

This summer, I have the incredible opportunity of interning at Ariadne Labs’ Serious Illness Care Program. Ariadne Labs is located in Boston, MA and it is an organization made up of 150+ physicians, researchers, and analysts who pride themselves on improving outcomes of patients in health systems. Their work is oriented around quality improvement using universal guides to provide clinicians in order to minimize errors in care. They utilize a system known as the Ariadne Arc to design, test, and spread scalable solutions in health care.

Ariadne Labs Arc - Ariadne Labs

For example, these solutions include a conversation guide for Serious Illness Care clinicians, a surgical checklist for the operating room, and a BetterBirth checklist to improve the efficiency of the birthing process.

My specific tasks through this internship will change every 2-3 weeks, however for this first stretch, I am working on sorting qualitative and quantitative data from the implementation of years past. A major focal point of this organization is measuring whether the implementation of programs has benefitted the health systems that use them and improve patient outcomes in the long run. In 2018 and 2019, Ariadne Labs implemented the Serious Illness Conversation Guide to 22 different health systems and trained clinicians to engage in better conversation with their patients through the guide. My job is to help measure whether this implementation was successful for these health systems and gauge whether there was a lasting impact of improved conversation between clinicians and patients. Specifically, I am tasked to sort the 200+ pages of data into a meaningful way to produce a manuscript of our implementation outcomes. So far I have successfully sorted through almost half of the data and will work towards finishing the other half by early July. The impact of my work will allow the organization to gauge whether our guide is able to be used in healthcare settings and if any changes need to be made to the implementation process.

Second, I am also a member of the Patient Guide project team where, upon approval from the Institutional Review Board, I will be able to take notes and even facilitate interviews with Serious Illness patients and families on the “What Matters Most Workbook”. The purpose and impact of this project are to ensure that clinicians are aiming towards patient-centered care and listening to the goals and values of each patient before jumping to treatment options for serious illness. As of now, I am in charge of formatting the workbook so it can be more user-friendly and ensure there are no technical issues with filling out all the important information which is the basis for each interview.

As I embark upon this journey of improving patient outcomes one step at a time, I have three goals in mind. I would like to tackle the issues in health care delivery and how to create scalable solutions to combat inequalities. I hope to prepare for patient interaction as I work my way up to medical school and beyond. This opportunity positions me to prepare for conversations with patients surrounding their medications and diagnoses and generate a human-centered design process for this patient guide. I hope to be more aware of methods of conducting clinical research and tying it to creating notable solutions in healthcare while expanding my network of healthcare professionals. Lastly, contributing to the development of the quality of life for patients battling serious illness would be a tangible goal that I could attain by being a part of this transformative research initiative.

— Ayush Thacker, Experiential Learning Fellow 2021

WOW post #1 – At Home Laboratory

It has been a great first month of summer working remotely with the Takahashi Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital. The main focus of this lab is to explore the development of the human brain across infancy through out young adulthood and compare this development to that of other species. The specific project that I am working on with my post-doctorate student is tracking the development of a white matter track called the Arcuate Fasciculus in baby humans, macaques, and chimpanzees using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). In humans, this track is responsible for our speech abilities. Since other primates such as macaques (which are your typical monkey) and chimpanzees are unable to talk, it was believed that they do not possess this track. However, recent research has shown that these primates may actually have a homologous track to the arcuate. This is exactly why the project that I am working on is being performed in the first place – this information is so new that any finding we find will be extremely useful to the field of developmental neuroscience. Whether our data is consistent or inconsistent with the prior research findings, it is going to be valuable and publish-worthy information.

The specific role that I have in this larger project is quite fascinating, especially since I get to do a great deal of the tracking work by myself. A typical day for me includes using the software TrackVis to isolate this white matter track in baby macaque data and then clean it up using several filters so that it is easier to compare and extract numerical diffusion data from in the future. I was given a rather large data set which I have the responsibility to complete, so I am certainly busy these days. This data is going to be used in our analysis of the arcuate in macaques and then compared to data we extract from baby humans and chimpanzees in order to make a final conclusion about whether this track appears truly homologous and how it develops across species. I also have weekly lab meetings with my post-doc student where we discuss any new lab matters and anything else ranging from new scientific articles to anthropological discussions. My post-doctorate student completed a degree in anthropology before switching over to the dark side that is neuroscience, so our lab meetings often get off topic to other interesting matters. Although I am slightly upset that I am not working in person this summer, my lab is deciding on possibly meeting in person once a month for lab meeting to mix things up a bit.

Since I will be starting my senior thesis this summer, my main goal is to get most of my data sets completed so that I can begin to simultaneously do the lab work needed for my post-doctorate student as well as the lab work I need to do for my thesis. I am also very excited to be participating in the Brandeis summer poster fair and am looking forward to creating a poster detailing the research that I am participating in. I am not sure what findings we will extract from our data, but I am definitely excited to analyze it and begin making some conclusions.

An Introduction to My Journey at Harvey Klinger Literary Agency

The home page of the Harvey Klinger Literary Agency website.

Reading through the queries in my inbox, I’m reminded of my younger self. I wrote these exact letters six years ago, when I attempted to write and publish my second novel. Dreaming of being a writer, I not only worked on writing as a craft, but also began teaching myself everything I would need to know about the industry. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about writing as both—enough that I now find myself here, working as an intern for Andrea Somberg, an agent working for Harvey Klinger Literary Agency in New York City.

Last fall, when applying to spring and summer internships, I had no idea where I wanted to end up or what kind of work I wanted to do. My interests spanned teaching, community organizing and activism, research, curation and conservation, art, and of course, writing. However, I hadn’t taken my writing seriously in a year or two. But I took the chance to apply to a handful of internships in writing, editing, and publishing, and I’m glad I did.

Each morning, I wake up and log into the email account used by the interns, and I open up the folder filled with queries—of historical fiction, fantasy, young adult fiction, memoirs, self-help books, you name it—for me to read through. My very first day on the job, reading the hopeful letters and fresh book ideas of potential authors, I was struck with a sense of excitement. As a writer, I understood the gravity of the words written and felt a fellowship to these people. As a reader, I felt amazed at reading stories never told before and honored to be one of the first to read them. As an anthropology major, I felt joy at being able to witness so many stories from different cultural, geographical, ethnic, racial, gendered, and queered perspectives, to watch the world unfold before me in so many people’s eyes and writing.

At the same time, I understand the responsibility I hold in this position, because I get to have a say in the stories and voices we hear— this means I am able to push forward stories that increase meaningful representation and tell beautiful, unique stories, and weed out stories riddled with queerphobia, racism, misogyny, and the like. This also means, however, that I am responsible for sending rejection emails to writers I decide to pass on, and as a writer, I know both the disappointment and immense growth that comes from such rejection.

Of course, most queries we interns place into the folder of possible queries for Andrea to review will also end up getting rejected by her. But every once in a while, there’s a story that captures her attention.

One day, she emailed me saying that she had requested to represent one of the books I had read the queries of and flagged for her to read. Although the part I play in reading and relaying may be small, moments like those make it feel larger than life.

As I approach nearly a month through the internship, I imagine what my younger self would think if they knew I was where I am now, working in what is no less than my dream internship, and I plan for the future of this summer, and of my life career. I will continue to learn all I can about writing, to network and gain insight into the writing industry, and to pursue my dreams of being a writer and making a difference in the industry, and one day, I may find myself in Andrea’s place, representing the newest voices in the literary world, or maybe I will find myself in the place of the authors sending queries and eventually getting published.

Community Servings 1st Blog Post

Community Servings is one of the leading organizations that is part of the coalition of Food is Medicine Massachusetts (FIMMA). Community Servings connects the healthcare field with the importance of food. By providing medically tailored, nutritious, scratch-made meals to chronically ill individuals and their families, Community Servings works to assure that individuals in the Boston area have access to the nutritious foods they need to be healthy. Through a collective work of meal delivery programs, nutrition education, and policy advocacy, Community Servings is helping lead the collective organizations in Boston which are all working to enhance the role of nutrition in healthcare.

FIMMA is a multi sector state-wide coalition of organizations that are working to connect the food system with the healthcare system. Through various interventions, FIMMA works to create a healthcare system where providers can identify food insecure individuals and connect them with the appropriate Food is Medicine intervention. Community Servings is a leading organization within the coalition, which results in much of the work that I am doing being connected to FIMMA at large.

A main project that I am tasked with this summer is leading the Consumer Advocacy Project where I am developing a strategy for enhanced engagement with FIMMA consumers. Though FIMMA understands the importance of connecting with their constituents and allowing the community to lead in the offered services, not much work has been done on these grounds to accomplish this goal. Through the work that I am doing, I will be aiming to lift the voices of FIMMA consumers. To accomplish this project, I’m learning about past strategies, successes, failures, and areas for improvement and with this information, I will be devising new strategies and leading them. In this effort, I will develop relationships with organizations who are willing to help lead this effort, and having direct outreach to the constituents.

Along with leading that effort, I’ll be helping Community Servings specifically engage with the community — both those who use their services and those who don’t. In this regard, I have been working on compiling resources necessary for events that connect the community to organizations. This involves creating informative flyers, organizing games, garnering interest in FIMMA, and receiving feedback on FIMMA services.

As a student at Brandeis majoring in HSSP, I’ve been learning a lot about the healthcare system. I have recently taken Food, Justice, and Health with Professor Shostak which has further inspired me to work with both the food system and the healthcare system. I am passionate about the role of nutrition in health, and it’s been great to be a part of FIMMA and work with Community Servings for that reason. I knew that I wanted to use what I was learning in my classes regarding food and the healthcare system towards actual work, and being able to do that enhances the learning experience. Through this experience, I am hoping to further develop an understanding of how my passions — both academic and personal — can fit into a career setting. As this internship experience is filled with my passions and interests in the work setting, it has already been allowing me to do just that.

Just Getting Started

My name is Sonali Anderson. I am a rising senior at Brandeis University majoring in Business and Environmental Studies, and I am working with an organization called Business Climate Leaders “BCL”. BCL is a non-profit syndicate group that mobilizes large American businesses to take climate action through nonpartisan climate advocacy. I have the amazing opportunity to help this organization further its efforts within climate justice through engagement within different business sectors. Our shared goal is to help large industries recognize their own contribution to climate change and the importance of advocating for carbon price dividend legislation. In return, we all can make a healthier environment across the nation.

During my time with BCL, I have been tasked with helping this organization within the health sector launch their “Health Professionals Declaration”. This is a document for medical professionals (doctors, veterinarians, nurses, etc.) that brings awareness to this particular industry’s contribution to carbon emissions along with how they individually can make a change by advocating for carbon price dividend legislation within their very own practice. I have learned that this is BCL’s standard first step approach when beginning to engage with a new sector. My responsibilities have been meeting/engaging with as many nurses, dentists, public health professionals, etc that are within the BCL network to sign HCP Declaration. Also, I have been strategizing ways in which this Declaration publication and messaging can be viewed by larger groups who have connections within this specific sector via social media platforms such as (LinkedIn and Facebook) as well. Specifically, in helping with social media outreach, I devised a plan in which it highlights different approaches BCL can implement to increase the amount of recognition of their efforts. This plan is flexible so it can be applied to any other new sector BCL takes on! From my work in completing this initial project, I have helped BCL amass over 1000 Health Professional signatories to the “Health Professionals Declaration”. Ultimately, this has allowed the awareness of BCL in regards to carbon legislation advocacy to increase within this sector.

There are many different sectors in this work ranging from energy and power to food and beverage. As a double major in Business and Environmental Studies, I hope to have a specific focus on the Retail/Fashion industry in relation to making their operations more sustainable. By engaging with this specific sector, through an approach I can begin to further the impact of my work by additionally learning and suggesting ways in which these large companies can reduce their carbon footprint within manufacturing, production, and distribution.

Creative Internship at the Griffin Museum of Photography – Steven M. Bunson ’82 Internship Fund in the Arts (WOW Program)

This summer, I am a Marketing Intern at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. In this position, I am part of a team responsible for creating engagement strategies as well as audiovisual and graphic content to promote the museum’s programs and exhibitions on various social media platforms. As a multimedia geek with a profound interest for photography and the visual arts, my goal is to generate genuine interest in artists, cultural organizations, and their work.

Front view of the museum with one on our public art exhibitions in collaboration with Photoville Fence

After working as a Multimedia Support Specialist and Production Assistant at Brandeis’ media lab (Sound and Image Media Studios), I am employing many of the creative and technical skills I acquired at Brandeis in a professional creative environment. Working as an all-in-one video editor, sound producer, and motion graphics designer, I am having the opportunity to merge my multimedia and marketing skills to help bridge the digital gap between cultural enterprises, their work, and the general public. I believe that by taking advantage of the possibilities digital media has to offer, museums can reach new audiences and expand the reach of their cultural impact by presenting their work through a different lens.

Two of the projects that I most enjoyed working on this summer were two artist statements that I transformed into promotional videos for the ongoing exhibitions at the main gallery: At the Edge of the Fens by Jacqueline Walters and Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman. For this task, I had to get in touch with the artists, have them record a voiceover of their artist statements, and come up with a creative interpretation of their exhibitions using a limited set of photographs. Most of my work is done with different Adobe Creative Cloud products that I practiced at SIMS in our many staff trainings, team and personal projects. I create graphics in Photoshop and Illustrator, which then I animate on After Effects and assemble together on Adobe PremierePro. I have also been exploring Adobe Dimension to add a 3D element to my design practice, as well as Adobe Audition and LogicPro to compose my own music as an alternative to using royalty-free sounds off the internet. I like my multimedia work to have a character of its own. I hope that by delivering eye-catching multimedia work while remaining honest to the artists and organization voice and missions, I can help strengthen bonds with their target consumers and expand the scope of their audiences.

Throughout the course of this internship I want to keep improving my multimedia and design skills. Thanks to the Steven M. Bunson ’82 Internship Fund in the Arts, I have had the opportunity to get a glimpse of what it is like to work in a fast-paced creative environment where deadlines are tight and content needs to be created on a daily basis. Although most of my work focuses on advertising and multimedia production, I would like to learn more about administrative tasks, such as programming and exhibitions. I would also like to dive deeper into the museum’s archives and get a glimpse of what working as an art curator feels like. I am grateful to be doing an internship that allows me to be creative and get inspired by other artists on a daily basis. It is something that inspires me not only to be more knowledgeable of the current trends in the world of photography and the visual arts, but it also inspires me to pursue something that I am very passionate about. The Griffin Museum summer internship program has been incredibly beneficial as it is allowing me to prepare for my upcoming curatorial internship at the Rose Art Museum next academic year – something I wouldn’t have been able to do without the help of World of Work and the Hiatt Career Center.

Giving Women A Seat At The Table: Lessons From My Internship at Emerge MA

This summer, I have the privilege of interning with Emerge MA, an organization dedicated to recruiting and training Democratic women to run for public office. Over the past couple of weeks, I have learned a great deal about sacrifice, dedication, and the realities of public service. Since its establishment in 2002, Emerge has trained over 4,000 women, and more than 700 of its alumni have been elected to public office – including 418 in 2018 alone. Emerge MA runs several intensive training programs targeting potential candidates and campaign managers. The signature program is a 70-hour training over six months that gives women critical knowledge of field operations, endorsements, fundraising, and communications. Through its programming, Emerge has created a network of successful and inspiring women, with which I have the pleasure of working.

My internship responsibilities include researching Emerge MA Alum, designing graphics, corresponding with Emerge MA members, engaging with the Emerge MA alum Facebook group, and drafting emails. One project I am working on right now is a graphic congratulating all of the Emerge MA alum who ran or are running for office in 2021. As I progress in the internship, I hope to gain more face time with some of the other women in Emerge MA’s network.

Though my internship is virtual, Emerge MA has ensured that I still feel part of the community. For instance, the Executive Director has set up a virtual office space over Zoom so she and I can work together. Though Zoom fatigue is real, I have immensely enjoyed having a space that fosters communication and collaboration. As the only summer intern, I have had the privilege of building a strong bond with the Executive Director, my direct supervisor. During our Zoom sessions, the Executive Director, an elected official herself, has given great insight into being both young and a woman in local politics.

I can tell that my summer internship at Emerge MA will be professionally and personally impactful. After reflecting on my past summer internships, I realized that I have only worked for male candidates. As a young woman passionate about civic engagement, I am desperate to see more women serving in elected office. As an Emerge MA intern, I feel like I am helping to create space for women to achieve in the realm of politics and government. Numerous studies have indicated that women are less likely to think they are qualified to hold political office, even if they are. I am thrilled to be part of an organization that empowers women to jump-start their campaigns by giving them the resources and training necessary.

My internship has also bolstered my own political ambitions. Since high school, I have toyed with running for office one day in order to create positive change in my community. However, serving in elected office can sometimes feel impossible – a coveted position reserved only for a select privileged few. Interning at Emerge MA has demystified elected office – showing me – through the success of its diverse alums – that anyone can run, including myself. I am excited for the rest of my summer and hope to continue to learn pertinent skills that will enhance my professional political career.

My Summer Goals with Health Innovation Capital

This summer, I am working virtually as a legal and administrative intern with Health Innovation Capital (HIC), a Chicago-based venture capital impact investor targeting the unmet innovation needs of pediatric patients within oncology, infectious diseases, and select rare/orphan designations. We are among the only independent U.S. Impact venture capital firms that maintains such an integrated investment thesis, impact strategy, and return model. Our mission is stated as follows, “HIC is committed to ensuring that the health innovation and impact investing that the firm pursues improves the quality of life and outcomes for the most vulnerable and at-risk patient populations. We evolved from the belief that there is no silver bullet to creating a sustainable, medicinally relevant, commercially viable and investor worthy medical innovation company that is patient and outcomes driven to the core.”

While HIC follows the format of a typical venture capital fund, (fundraising through limited partners and investing in growing businesses) we have a focus on impact. To ensure that all patients have access to care regardless of income, location, or another factor, HIC has established a not-for-profit organization that partners with centers of excellence around the world and donates an estimated 10% of the general partner carry allocation or 2% of the firm’s overall performance back to these centers of excellence.

As this is only the firm’s first fund, it could be considered a startup. Therefore, I have been involved in helping set up and choose many of the business administration tools our whole fund will be using such as our Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM), our fund administrator, and our data room provider. Through meetings with different representatives taking notes, comparing and contrasting functionality, and discussing with the general partners we have made decisions and hope to get all three fully set up by the end of next week. I also have helped create and organize our company’s digital filing system and created Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for sharing and saving data, which has streamlined communication and organization for us. On the legal side, I have had the opportunity to help read and even write up employment agreements for some of the fund’s new hires. Not only this, but I have created and sent out many non-disclosure agreements to be executed by those with who we begin to do business. This has not only taught me how to better read and understand contracts and legalese but has helped the partners and general counsel by speeding up business processes.

My learning goals for the rest of the summer are to continue working in lockstep with the general partners to continue gaining experience in the field of venture capital and transaction law. I will continue to work with legal counsel and the general partners to help revise and finalize different legal documentation such as term sheets and private placement memorandums with the final goal of being able to create and execute them independently. I will also undergo training on how to evaluate new investments and learn, from the ground-up with senior partner mentorship, how a sector-specific venture investor identifies, evaluates, and executes investments in a diverse set of companies. On occasion, I may also support a General Partner and HIC portfolio company’s executives (CEOs, COOs, etc.) to employ a revised investment and operating model to drive investor returns.

1st WOW Blog Post

This summer I am working as a research intern for the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard School of Public Health. The goal of this program is to improve the lives of people in all buildings and indoor spaces by conducting and conveying research regarding public health and building science. I am responsible for three projects this month. The first one is creating the layout for a website for an extensive three-part research regarding the impact of green buildings on cognitive function. The second project that I am a part of is called the “healthy homes app” where I am able to work with a very innovative and diverse team. The purpose of this project is to create a mobile application in order to raise awareness of the existence of and harm related to indoor air pollutants on human health. We are trying to develop a digital solution to reduce the effects of indoor air pollutants. In order to do this, effective background research is necessary which is what I have been focusing on. The third project that I have dedicated my time to is translating various scientific papers in order to make it more accessible to the public. I truly believe that all the work I do this summer will contribute to helping the program rapidly make progress in the world of research and bringing real- world change.

As my background is in Environmental Studies, this internship directly aligns with my interest and the type of higher education I plan to pursue in the future. I am very passionate about sustainability and have started developing greater interest when it comes to the built environment and its impact on people. My work to help conduct more research regarding this subject and translating the findings to make it more accessible to the general public is definitely a substantial learning opportunity. Throughout this internship, my goal is to learn more about the correlation between the built environment and the impacts on human health.

Blog Post 1 – Working as an Undergraduate Research Intern

This summer, I am grateful to be working as an Undergraduate Research Intern for the Mind and Heart Lab at The Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at The Miriam Hospital located in Providence, Rhode Island. I am working with the research team under the supervision of the Principal Investigator Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher, MD, Ph.D., FAHA. The team consists of the Principal Investigator, Project Manager, Research Assistant, Data Systems Analyst, Study Psychologist, and one other Undergraduate Research Intern in addition to myself. The research team is focused on studying the processes by which the mind can affect cardiovascular physiology and health. In the past, they have focused on exploring the role of mindfulness training for medicine adherence for heart failure outpatients.

Currently, the team is working on the Broken Heart Study II which is focused on exploring the triggers responsible for Takotsubo syndrome. Takotsubo syndrome (TS), also known as Broken Heart Syndrome, is characterized by acute, reversible systolic heart failure which affects primarily older, postmenopausal women. Takotsubo is not particularly fatal, however, there can be long-term effects on the left ventricle function. There are gaps in the information that is known about the causes and triggers of Takotsubo for many of the patients affected by this disease. It is thought that emotional and physical triggers are likely causes of Takotsubo, but there is still much to be understood. In addition to this study, I have been able to contribute to an abstract submission investigating if the incidence of Takotsubo cases has increased during the pandemic period (March 2020 – February 2021) compared to the year prior (March 2019 – February 2020). We hypothesized that due to the increased stressors of the pandemic, the incidence of Takotsubo would be higher during the pandemic year compared to the non-pandemic year. We discovered that there were increased cases of TS during the pandemic year even with a large decrease in all-cause admissions to the Rhode Island Hospital System. This trend is something that we wish to continue to explore across a larger area to see if these trends are similar along the East Coast.

” This ongoing NHLBI-funded project is designed to study the triggers of Takotsubo syndrome (aka Broken Heart Syndrome), determine whether people with this condition are unusually responsive to stress, and whether a greater response to stress puts patients at risk of another episode.” https://mindandheartlab.org

My goals for this summer include gaining an understanding of the fundamentals of clinical research and experience working with a research team by taking part in meeting weekly with the entire research team as well as meeting biweekly for mentorship meetings (lab meetings) with Dr. Salmoirago-Blotcher. I wish to gain invaluable research experience which I believe will prepare me for graduation, future work, and applying to medical school. I hope to gain the basic principles of data abstraction and analysis which are crucial in epidemiology research. In addition, I hope to become more confident in my statistics and epidemiology skills and become an impactful part of the research team. I would like to form lasting connections with the members of the research team through our meetings and project partnerships. Finally, I will try to stay connected with the research team members even after my summer internship ends.

(1) Advocating for Healthcare Consumers

This summer, I am working as a Health Policy Intern with the National Consumers League (NCL). NCL is a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. that represents the interests of consumers in a number of policy areas, including healthcare and prescription drugs, fraud, labor, and food safety. I chose to work at NCL because I believe that it is important that we ensure consumers are protected from high costs and bad practices when they seek medical care. Any effort to fix our broken healthcare system must put patients at the center. NCL seeks to address injustices of all kinds that are committed against consumers. These can range from direct scams to broken systems that profit off of consumers’ suffering.

In terms of health policy, NCL works to fix injustices related to anti-vaccine misinformation, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that fail to pass drug rebate savings onto consumers, unregulated CBD, and prescription drug access, among many other initiatives. To address these injustices, NCL uses many different strategies: pushing for specific bills and policies to lawmakers and government officials; engaging in coalition-building with other stakeholders to advocate for issues; and providing educational resources directly to consumers, as with their medication adherence program Script Your Future, and their website with information on the unregulated CBD market 4safecbd.org, among others.

I have been responsible for a variety of different projects including writing statements in support of or opposition to multiple bills, conducting research on health policy issues, creating profiles on key members of Congress, and updating NCL’s health policy positions for their website. One of the statements that I helped to write was in support of the Protecting Seniors Through Immunizations Act, a bill making its way through Congress that would eliminate copays for all vaccines covered under Medicare Part D. Currently, vaccines are covered with no out-of-pocket costs under private insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare Part B. Unfortunately, the vaccines covered under Medicare Part D come with copays often totaling over $100. I was very happy to be able to advocate for increased vaccine access, an issue that I believe is very important for our society, especially as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through NCL’s efforts in support of this bill, I have seen how bills are passed behind the scenes. I have valued the opportunity to sit in on meetings with other advocacy groups, stakeholders, and congressional staff as we attempt to ensure that this bill becomes law. All of these smaller actions are what push policy through government. Additionally, while small fixes like those provided in the Protecting Seniors Through Immunizations Act are not nearly enough to fix America’s horribly broken healthcare system, they certainly have the potential to improve people’s lives and create a healthier society for all of us. And even the big, sweeping changes that so many of us desire require behind-the-scenes policy and advocacy work to successfully implement them.

Post #1: Sapphire Internship

Hello, my name is Amelia Trahan and I am a recipient of the social justice WOW grant. Just a little something about myself; I am now going into my sophomore year at Brandeis and plan on studying English with a minor in AAPI studies. With the help of this grant, I can proceed with my remote internship with Sapphire, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to uplifting black and brown voices and experiences through the creative arts.

Sapphire Hues Press Logo

Understanding black individuals’ stories through an abstract perspective such a poetry or visual art (i.e., photography) has been such a wonderful and enlightening experience so far! Since starting my role as a project development assistant, I have completed multiple tasks that have benefited the organization and myself as I gain new knowledge and skills every day. One of the many tasks that I have as the project development assistant for Sapphire is to upload and maintain our social media presence which is best known on Instagram as @sapphirehuespress. This account is primarily used to promote the press section of the organization; this includes our published works such as our literary magazines and artbooks. We use our social media platforms to push sales for these publications and also to gather aspiring artists whose work can be highlighted in these art books and magazines.

Recently I have gained more experience with software such as Canva which helps to design the posts I must make. For example, this month the submissions for our upcoming art book, “Black And”, have opened up, so I have had to make a post using Canva. Designing these posts has been delightful and I cannot wait to make more!

Due to Covid, my internship is completely online this summer and therefore meetings and interactions take place online as well. I usually have a weekly meeting with one of the founders of the organization and director Salena Deane. During these meetings, we usually discuss our game plan for the week, which recently has included sifting through submissions together and deciding which to accept or reject.

Looking through the submissions we receive for this upcoming artbook is definitely my favorite thing to do, especially when I am doing it with Salena. There is never a dull moment when analyzing them, and I never get tired of the genuine curiosity and admiration I have for each piece I see.

One of my goals for learning this summer is to widen my knowledge and experience with a variety of software used for design and publishing. Recently, I have been achieving this goal one day at a time by taking online courses built to certify me in software such as Adobe InDesign, Canva, and also web content writing. I hope to be certified in all of these by the end of the summer and use them as additional skills when on the prospect for career-boosting activities.

I have no doubt that by the time this internship is over, I will have gained some expertise that will be necessary in order to excel in my desired career path.

(1) Fundraising At SuitUp

SuitUp is a New York City-based education nonprofit that serves students around the country and the world by providing business planning competitions that pair underserved student groups with corporate partners looking to host employee volunteer events. The corporate partners serve as coaches for students as they navigate in groups to solve a business challenge in a way that exposes them to career opportunities and career readiness strategies. The beauty of this partnership is that it creates mentors for students who may not otherwise have them and effectively uses the skill sets of America’s corporate employees to inspire the future workforce. Mainly through competitions but through other volunteering initiatives as well, SuitUp has the goal of making sure that all students are exposed to the college and career paths of their choosing.

For me, at first glance, it was clear that today more than ever was a time to get involved in an organization like this. Recent racial justice initiatives on the individual level and the corporate level prove that this equity work can no longer wait. If we all want a better tomorrow, students from a young age need to be given the tools for success, not just the bare minimum. The education system has its flaws, and organizations like SuitUp seek to use the power of volunteering and philanthropy to begin to fill these gaps.

As somebody who grew up in the New York City public school system, I always knew about the education gap and disparities in education. But my understanding and vocabulary to describe my passion for educational equity didn’t come until I began university. At Brandeis, I also realized that my volunteer work in New York City public schools and even the public schools that surround Brandeis was showing me where these inequities start. I could also see why there is such a lack of economic and racial diversity at some of the best colleges in the country. If K-12 schools can’t even find the funding to provide necessary academic support to their English language learners and special education students, how will they achieve the goals written into state standards on college and career readiness?

SuitUp believes that all companies have a plethora of reasons to participate in these events, and students deserve these opportunists and more. However, sometimes the cost of each event does not cover what we need to carry out our programing as successfully as possible. Therefore, SuitUp hosts an annual gala. That brings me to my role as the Events and Fundraising intern working under SuitUp’s Executive Director. My job, as well as the job of the other intern on my team, is to plan ahead for the gala this fall. Within the first few weeks, I have created marketing collateral and communicated with the guest list, reached out to vendors to secure sponsors and gifts, and led a team of corporate executives to strategize marketing in preparation for our gala. These projects have taught me so much. Most importantly, I have learned that social progress takes detailed-oriented teamwork. SuitUp excels at this and is teaching it to its summer 2021 interns.

Blog post #1 — Yuezhu Chen

This summer, I work as a Research Assistant for Kogan Communications, where I report to the owner of the firm, Dr. Kogan, every workday. Our research topic is mainly about the Civil Rights Movement; the most consequential moral movement of the last century, and how civil rights activist, Congressman John Lewis contributed to the movement and to American society.

During the first several days of work, I mainly conducted research on some clips of the Civil Rights Movement that John Lewis was actively involved in. For example, I tried to find detailed information as much as possible for the First Freedom Ride. The First Freedom Ride began on May 4, 1961, when 13 freedom riders (7 blacks, including John Lewis, and 6 whites) left Washington, D.C., on two buses, aiming at New Orleans. The intention of the ride was to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton vs. Virginia (1960) which ruled segregation in interstate buses unconstitutional. One of my jobs was to conduct research on the ride and write a detailed chronology — where the riders were each day; if they were attacked, the reaction from the governmental officials and the public, etc.

During the research, I found several websites and books that depict Freedom Rides in detail. One of the most notable books is John Lewis’s memoir, Walking with the Wind in which Lewis narrates his experiences during the Movement along with his physical and mental feelings. While closely reading the book, I not only understand the courage of the freedom riders but also the importance and greatness of non-violence means of fighting. I listened to the interviews that John Lewis had in the 21st century where he not only talked about the Movement but also juxtaposed it with recent events. The role that John Lewis played in the Freedom Rides and the Movement was notable, and his experiences and leadership could serve as a model for present civil rights activists. In addition to John Lewis’s memoir, I hope I could have more narratives on the practice of nonviolence.

John Lewis, left, and Jim Zwerg, a Fisk student, checks out their injuries after been beaten by a mob after they arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, May 20, 1961. (cr: USA Today)

Conducting research on the historical events triggered by racial segregation also has significance today. The Civil Rights Movement shows how structural racism was handled in the U.S., which is also a learning goal of mine doing the research. The leadership of John Lewis is also inspiring for people of color, like me, who want to fight for racial equality in the country.

Other than the Freedom Rides, I also conduct research on China and USSR’s propaganda to the Civil Rights Movement in the Cold War era when the triangular relationship of three countries (U.S., China, and the USSR) was subtle but sensitive. My native proficiency in Chinese also enables me to analyze the primary sources in Chinese, thereby get more access to a variety of materials. In the recent future, I hope I can deepen my understanding of how international relationships influenced the Civil Rights Movement through research.

So Far, So Good and SO MUCH Fun!

Greetings from Jerusalem! I am interning for the Hillel at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for their English language Beit Midrash (Jewish text study house), working under and with the head rabbi of the program, Rabbi Udren. So far in June my job has been mostly to work with the rest of the Hillel team to promote fundraising (shameless plug) for next year to get money for programs to rebuild the community after the worst of the pandemic left campus empty. We have done most of this fundraising by calling potential donors and sending messages on WhatsApp. We meet in the office twice a week and make phone calls and documenting the response we get from the people we talk to. So far our efforts have raised $35,000 of our $60,000 goal which is the most successful phone drive the program has had to date!

In July my job will switch to focusing on the social media presence of the University Hillel; I will be in charge of posting to their Facebook and Instagram as well as finding ways to further promote those two platforms to increase their presence and popularity both for the community and as a way to promote Rabbi Udren’s weekly Torah learning podcast, Sparks From the Fire (yes, another shameless plug!). I have already put some effort into this task while I was in quarantine, which has given me a head start and an insight to the problems that the accounts have. The objective is to, by the end of my time there, recreate the schedule and guidelines for posting on those two platforms in a way that can be continued by the rabbi when I leave and to increase the reach of the podcast to people all over the world. I have even been given the illustrious title of Social Media Director for the program! The title only came with pride and a sense of appreciation, not a raise.

From the internship I hope to gain experience and insight into working for a Jewish nonprofit and to make connections that can aid me in my professional life. Furthermore, I have been given the opportunity to learn Jewish texts at a Yeshiva (house of study) two mornings a week, which has served to deepen my spiritual connection to Judaism as well as given me more experience studying Jewish texts, which has been imperative for my professional development.

While I do go into the office several times a week, most of my work as the Social Media Director can and is done remotely, from the comfort of whatever park I am exploring on a given day. I have been able to interact with many Israelis which has taught me one thing: I need to learn more Hebrew. I am hoping that with enough time and practice here that I will finally realize all of the lessons that my Hebrew professors have been trying to instill in me for three years now. I’m sorry, Sara and Guy.

(My view from the office)

Harrison Carter

(1) Power in Place: Settings of Inspiration

Power in Place is a nonprofit organization focused on highlighting women in American politics through academic writing, interviews, podcasts, visual art, spoken word poems, and other forms of advocacy. PiP was founded in 2015 by professional photographer Katrina Hajagos in response to the lack of women–especially women of color–in political office. Only 23.7% of women hold a congressional office and only 37% of those women are women of color. The goal of PiP is to emphasize the lack of women in politics and to inspire the next generation of young women to find their voice and their place in American politics.

As a woman and a woman of color myself, I have often wondered how I could best serve my adoptive country. I was not born on American soil, so the presidency is out of the question. I could pursue a place in office in politics or continue my education into law school. Either way, I want a place in politics. As I entered my junior year at Brandeis, I looked for ways I could begin to enter the realm of politics, and the nonprofit Power in Place was perfect for me. Power in Place allows me to begin understanding politics in the field, and helps me develop skills in research, writing, and management.

As of 2021, Power in Place has 120 student collaborators from all over the country. There are 17 sections (or “teams”) of the organization that an intern can choose from. Sections include grant-writing, website design and accessibility, podcasting, in-house graphic design, and more. In addition to being assigned a team, students will individually choose an elected official from their home state to interview and conduct a photoshoot.

Initial rough outline of research on the suffragette movement

I was designated as a project manager for the virtual time capsule team and as a member of the graphic design team. The virtual time capsule is a long-term summer project where collaborators are working to create a virtual artistic timeline that tells the story of the suffragette and feminist movements starting in its early stages of the 1800s to the modern day fight for women’s equality in the 21st century. As the project manager for this team, I will be conducting and overseeing research, holding team meetings, and serving as a liaison for our boss, Katrina. So far we have conducted research on the women’s suffrage movement starting in the 1800s and on the early days of second-wave feminism in the 1960s.

The graphic design team is focused on helping out all other teams with any art or graphics needed. For example, our boss is looking to have a new logo created for Power in Place. Our team has been working on making a new logo that is more modern-looking and representative of the organization. In addition, the team is creating “baseball cards” for the highlighted women we are interviewing and for historical figures.