Alumni Spotlight

Marissa Pine Yeakey '08

2008 MHS graduate, Marissa Pine Yeakey recalls that her favorite academic experience was her internship in Malawi, during which she had the opportunity to participate in qualitative data collection on women with obstetric fistula repair surgery. She states, “Through the data collection, analysis, and writing, I had the opportunity to bring together so many of the skills I’d learned in the classroom, while building the knowledge base about a serious health inequity.”

Students who participate in the professional MSPH program are required to complete a 4 to 6 month internship. Marissa participated in two internships during her program, including one with the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Communication Programs (CCP) on the INFO Project in the Monitoring and Evaluation Department followed by an internship with Gates Institute’s partner, The Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Malawi.

Presently, Marissa works as a policy analyst in International Programs at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) in Washington, D.C. She also manages a fellowship program at PRB for PhD and doctoral students from developing countries who are researching reproductive health. “Our fellowship program aims to build skills to communicate with policy and non-technical audiences. There are students from JHSPH and/or the PFRH department each year, and I enjoy maintaining my connection to the department through those students,” Marissa says.

At PRB Marissa focuses on the intersection of research and policy for women’s and reproductive health. “There’s so much valuable research that has profound implications for policy, but it needs to be translated and made accessible for policy and decision making audiences.With my background in research from JHSPH, I am confident in taking on this challenge,”

*In 2010 the MHS degree switched to the MSPH degree