Myeisa Barnhill

Myeisa Barnhill is a junior undergraduate majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology, with minors in Africana Studies and Social Justice Organizing. Currently, she is enrolled in a FastTrack Master of Public Health program that cultivates her desire to service marginalized communities. In her youth and now adulthood, she has always sought to make an impact through healing hands, dedicating herself to learning, valuing diverse experiences, and advocacy, while appreciating each person’s significant and salient identity. In the pursuit of her passion for global medicine, she has had the prestigious opportunity to take service-learning trips to Turrialba, Costa Rica, Dakar, Senegal, and Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. In each of these experiences she was able to assist with the building of schools, a hospital, and a multi-use community center for the indigenous people, moreover, aid in clinics alongside indigenous volunteers and physicians. Observing some examples of affronts to human rights caused by a daisy chain of ailing economic socio-political factors, she has learned that treating individual symptoms is not enough to sustainably impact the health of a whole people. Such international efforts have prompted her to join collegiate organizations and non-profits dedicated to the holistic approach of improving one’s quality of life; for the bond of humanity. Intimate familiarity with personal and selfless social determinants of health and disparities, has attracted her to Dr. Fumilayo Showers’ HealthCare Lab. She looks forward to becoming an asset to the team and gaining the necessary research skills of cross-cultural sensitivity and scholarship. Together, she hopes their research will optimally promote equitable social policies, continue dismantling schisms, prepare them all for youthful leadership, global citizenship, and a multifaceted career to develop healthier environments. Coalescing their research initiatives wherever they may connect them to issues in a broader community beyond their curriculum.