MSPH, Department of Epidemiology
Presidential Management Fellow, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
“When I think of Rollins, I think of the people. I met some of my closest friends there. Faculty are accessible and willing to help you. It felt like such a community.”
Grayson Donley was a college student studying abroad in Costa Rica when she first started considering public health as a potential career path. Several of the other students on the trip shared their plans to apply to public health programs at schools like Rollins after college. As a biology major, Donley had a passion for science and math, but wasn’t sure what she wanted to do for a career. The more she learned about public health—a field previously unknown to her—the more intrigued she became.
While applying to graduate schools, Donley worked with AmeriCorps as an associate instructional specialist in Austin, Texas, where she introduced at-risk youth to STEM-related concepts (which, in its most adorable form, included teaching kids how to care for goats). She engaged with the community and formed partnerships and relationships that enabled her to be successful in the position—skills that would later translate to graduate school and her professional life.
Given her math and science background, Donley gravitated toward epidemiology once she was accepted into Rollins. Though epidemiology was brand-new to her less than a year before, Donley found immediate opportunities to engage in a field she found absolutely fascinating.
Through the Rollins Earn and Learn program, Donley secured a health communication position with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, which she enjoyed so much, she stayed for the full two years. As a newbie to public health, Donley didn’t enter Rollins with a specific interest area in mind. She kept her options open, which served her well during her graduate school experience.
Through an email sent by her advisor, Donley found an opportunity to work with professor Terry Hartman at the CDC on a project looking at environmental exposures in pregnant women that she transitioned into her thesis. Donley rounded out her knowledge and experience by serving as a teaching assistant (TA) for the Epidemiology of STD & HIV Prevention class and the Fundamentals of Epidemiology class. Given the breadth of her experiences, upon graduation, Donley was prepared to work in a wide variety of settings.
“It’s really okay to go in with an open slate and figure out what you want to do as you go along,” she says. “My thesis was environmental health related. I took a lot of methods courses. Now, I’m doing cancer work. It’s okay not to have that specific focus.”
For the past two years, Donley’s worked with the NIH in varying capacities as a Presidential Management Fellow with the National Cancer Institute. Through this role, she’s rotated through the organization in four-to-six-month increments in preparation for a full-time position (she’ll have the opportunity to work in one of her former rotations or in another office within NIH where there is demonstrated need). While she’s unsure which area she’ll ultimately choose, Donley notes she prefers something that challenges her and where she can see continual opportunities for growth.