Q&A with Epi alumna Sonya Jampel

Sonya Jampel earned her MPH in Epidemiology and Maternal Child Health from the University of Washington Department of Epidemiology in 2023. Today, Sonya is in her second year working at Public Health – Seattle and King County, and her post-graduate work has allowed her to better understand the intersections of climate change and health as an Applied Epidemiology Fellow for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiology (CSTE).

Can you tell us a bit about your background and connection to the University of Washington Department of Epidemiology (UW Epi)?

I am starting my second year working at Public Health – Seattle & King County (PHSKC) in the Climate & Health Equity Initiative as a Council for State and Territorial Epidemiology (CSTE) Applied Epidemiology Fellow. Throughout the fellowship, I have had the opportunity to work on various projects to understand the impact of climate change on health in our community including heat, wildfire smoke, and mental health. I am very excited to be working at the intersection of climate change and health as many people can connect about the necessity of protecting health in our community, the increasingly severity and intensity of immediate and long-term impacts, new emerging methods needed, and intersectional nature of solutions

I graduated from University of Washington with my MPH in Epidemiology and Maternal and Child Health in June 2023. During my degree, I worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduate biology and then the MPH core curriculum. I loved sharing my knowledge with other excited and motivated students. I also completed an internship with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a placement in the Region 10 Water Division working on infrastructure grants and the Office of Research and Development studying the impact of air pollution on infant mortality. Prior to starting my master’s, I worked at a community health center as a patient advocate helping patients navigate the complicated health care system in our country.

Do you have any recent accomplishments/projects you are proud of that you’d like to share?

I feel lucky to have just returned from the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Conference in Santiago, Chile where I presented my master’s thesis on air pollution and infant mortality. It was super exciting to meet some of the experts that I cited in our paper, share our findings, and learn more about the field of environmental epidemiology. My thesis committee—Dr. Tom Luben from the EPA, along with Dr. Joel Kaufman and Dr. Daniel Enquobahrie at UW—were so supportive of my research and learning along the way with this trip as a perfect capstone to the project. We also received a provisional acceptance from Environmental Epidemiology and have been working on response to comments.

Additionally, at the conference, I was able to conduct a focus group of experts for a new grant collaboration as part my position at PHSKC and with Dr. Jessica Acolin from UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. This work is supported by a UW grant from the UW Population Health Initiative early-stage pilot grant. Through a series of approaches—focus groups, literature review, and question testing—we aim to create a brief measure of climate change distress that can be included in large epidemiologic surveys to understand the scope of the issue. Climate change is driving growing impacts on health in our community, creating a need for new surveillance systems and databases to measure the impact.

I am also very proud of our colleagues at the King County Executive Climate Office for the creation of our first Extreme Heat Mitigation Plan. They led the co-development of this strategy in collaboration with state and local government, service providers, community-based organizations, frontline communities and other partners to suggest 20 actions in 6 categories for heat mitigation. I was able to review the literature and complete a descriptive analysis for the background on the impact of heat on health in our county with a focus on who is most impacted. The recent launch in Glendale Forest Park celebrated the important work creating the plan and beginning to move the actions forward. It was exciting to learn about how data and research informs community engagement and government prioritization.

What does it mean to you to be an alum of UW Epi?

In my professional work, it has been exciting to collaborate with other alumni on projects even after graduating from the program. At PHSKC, I also really appreciate current collaborations with current UW students, postdocs, and professors. They offer important resources, mentorship, and opportunities to make our community healthier and happier.

When applying to my current fellowship, I found it helpful to speak with UW alumni who were already in the program about what their work was like and tips on making a strong application. A UW alumnus also helped me with creating a federal resume and navigating USAJobs when applying for my internship at the EPA. Now as a fellow, I love meeting with current UW students to share my experience and help them figure out where their path might lead.

What advice do you have for our incoming, current, or recently graduated Epi students?

In terms of advice: at a recent career panel that I attended, one of the speakers shared, “No one knows what they are doing until they are doing it.” This really resonated with me. Throughout my training, I felt a pressure to know what specific part of public health and epidemiology that I wanted to pursue and gain all the appropriate skills immediately. For some, especially people like me who can get excited about many different projects, it can be daunting to choose your career course. My advice would be that you are only deciding what you are would like to do next and not for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. UW Epi provides you with a wide range of skills that you can apply to many problems and teaches you how to learn—which is helpful in learning what you need to know on the job. Especially in climate change work, we can see health impacts in many different sectors and many skillsets are only just emerging. We need individuals with public health training working in fields ranging from green jobs to greenhouse gas mitigation to transportation and more. Be creative about where you do your practicum and bring health into all sectors!

Another piece of advice would be to lean on those who are willing to help and create a strong support system. I was impressed with my fellow students and their academic expertise but also appreciated their emotional support and friendship to get through the degree together. Friends and family also provided much needed encouragement and support. Professors were also always willing to help, and alumni willingly agreed to informational interviews or gave job application tips. I feel really grateful to be part of the UW community and would be happy to chat with any incoming, current or recently graduated UW Epi students.