Do The Change: Challenging and Reimagining OEHS

Do the Change: Reimagining OEHS with Rezahn Abraha (Part 1)

• Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In the next episode of #DoTheChange, we are joined by Rezahn Abraha, MPH, a recent UC Berkeley graduate in Environmental Health Sciences and Global Health. Rezahn embodies a social-justice based approach to environmental health, striving to create equitable environments through her work in environmental policy analysis, exposure assessment, and epidemiological research. Tune in to hear her perspective on the importance of mentorship in building a career, her multicultural upbringing in the U.S. and Japan, and her research in addressing social determinants of health. You can find the full transcript of this episode on our website: https://www.coeh.berkeley.edu/do-change-rezahn-abraha

JOANNE TEH:

Hey, guys. Welcome to Do the Change podcast where we're challenging and reimagining occupational and environmental health sciences. In this podcast, we focus on upcoming and current leaders in their field and dive into how they got to where they are today and their advice for those interested in the field. My name is Joanne Teh, and I'm a current undergraduate here at Berkeley. And our guess for the episode is Rezahn Abraha. So this is Rezahn. Hi, Rezahn.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Hi.

JOANNE TEH:

Razan's a recent undergrad-- or sorry, Rezahn is a recent graduate in environmental health sciences, holding an MPH with a focus on environmental health sciences and global health from UC Berkeley. With a BS in Environmental Health Science from the same institution, Rezahn combines academic prowess with hands-on experience. She is a student of environmental policy analysis, exposure, assessment, and epidemiological research. As a graduate student researcher, Rezahn contributed to the biosphere initiative, examining air pollution impact in collaboration with partners like California Central Asthma Collaborative and the California Department of Public Health. As a graduate student instructor, she aims to cultivate an environment where her peers aim to see themselves as a generation of leaders. Beyond academia, Rezahn is actively engaged in community service, embodying a social justice-based approach to environmental health and striving to create equitable environments for all. Awesome. So nice to meet you, Rezahn. How are you today?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Nice to meet you, Joanne. Yeah, I'm doing pretty well. Thanks so much for having me on.

JOANNE TEH:

It's the midst of final season. Is it also for you?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

It is. And it is for you too. So, Go Bears.

JOANNE TEH:

Go Bears. I just finished my last one today. How about you?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Congratulations.

JOANNE TEH:

Thank you.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

--final last night and finishing up a report now.

JOANNE TEH:

Yeah. I also have, like, follow-up work to do. We got this. Almost there, I guess.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Almost there.

JOANNE TEH:

OK, well, should we start by getting into your personal journey?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Sure. So I guess that I can tell you a little bit about how I got here in the master's program and now almost as a graduate of the master's program in public health. So I have kind of an international upbringing. I grew up in Japan until the age of seven, and then I moved to the United States. And it was a big move for me. Even though I was very young, I saw a lot of obviously very obvious social cultural differences. And I think one of the biggest differences I noticed was that kind of United States kind of had like an obvious lack of health disparities between people. Japan has other kind of issues like that, but they weren't as obvious to me at the time. But when I moved to the United States, specifically to the Bay Area, I think I noticed a lot of things that-- it got me to think about what I know as a term now as the social determinants of health, things like access to housing and health care and your socioeconomic background. And even just, yeah, your, your family upbringing and cultural norms and things like that. So that was a huge, I think, formative part of my journey that I only realized honestly until I got to grad school. So that's a big part of me. Another big part of me is that I'm both Eritrea on my dad's side and American on my mom's side. And so I think I grew up with a lot of cultural-- understanding that people come from very many different cultural backgrounds. And I think that also, part of me, gave me an understanding of why people are different, one, but also just it gave me a desire to create understanding and the classic mixed kid dilemma. I come from two different worlds. How do I blend them? But honestly, I think it's something many people experience in many different ways. But I think that was also something that was just very formative for me and actually motivated my desire to study something that would help me to figure out how I can help other people become healthy and be able to work together. And I think that's what drew me to public health, honestly. Which is interesting. Again, something I only realized when I was in grad school. I didn't really grow up thinking that, but it's become a lot more obvious to me, I think, the longer that I've been in school. And so yeah. I went to undergrad at Berkeley, studied environmental sciences. A really cool experience, but also challenging in many ways. I think a lot of undergrads at Berkeley can testify. I'm sure you can, too. Just because it's such a rigorous academic environment. And I think that Berkeley students are challenged in a lot of ways that are unique to this school. Maybe even socially, academically, politically. So I think that those are all things that I contended with in my undergrad journey. And so coming from that background and going into grad school, as I was going to find a grad program, I was thinking about, well, the first thing was, honestly, can I pay for it? And so I was just applying to many different scholarships and trying to figure out how I could fund my journey, because I honestly couldn't go to grad school unless I had had funding. And so once I found and secured funding, ended up getting a scholarship through the Blue Shield of California program, I decided to commit to going to grad school. And then choosing my program, public health, in undergrad, for my environmental science major thesis, I did a research project on Superfund sites and how communities that were historically redlined had been in closer proximity to them and learned a lot about that. So environmental health seemed just next fit to jump into towards the grad program and got really excited after I got funding. And then, I guess, two years later, here I am as a graduate. Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

That's awesome. I relate to you in the-- OK. You said that you got the multicultural experience and that helped you land on the field, a career field. I relate to you because I was born in Malaysia. I'm ethnically Chinese. So I'm one of the ethnic groups within Malaysia. And then I came here when I was like in elementary school, kindergarten. So I relate to you. But how did you turn that experience into a source of passion for your career?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. Thanks for telling me that. I love to hear about how people feel like they have navigated to where they are. Because honestly, our younger experiences are so formative, is something I've learned in grad school, too. And it really shapes who you are. And I found a lot of people that have a similar background, like what you were saying and describing in this field. But I guess your question was, how do I think that it's brought me here specifically?

JOANNE TEH:

Mhm.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

I think that-- I don't know why I like that. I guess just in the sense that public health is known for-- it's desire to work with people from many different disciplines. And that's an academic translation to me. Because people from academic disciplines are still people, I don't know, in a basic sense, I guess. And so I think that's what drew me to public health and informs my learning and desire to learn now.

JOANNE TEH:

Yeah. Definitely. And you said when you came to America, you saw how these social determinants of health played a role in health equity. Could you clarify. Did you say that you saw like more health disparity here or in Japan?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

No. That's OK. I think I saw it here. There are health disparities in Japan. But growing up, as a child, I wasn't as aware of them. And also I think that Japan's governing system and things like that. They're known for universal health care and paid leave and things that are basic things and some other countries. So I think that coming here and being confronted with major disparities in health mostly very obviously, by factors like race and socioeconomic status were huge things for me personally. And even though growing up in Japan, I did have that experience of feeling like an outsider and things like that, because many people that come from Japan also talk about that, I think that also, in a sense, motivated me to be like, OK. Well, I understand that even if I'm different from people, we can still work together. And that's always been a motivating factor for me. So yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

That's awesome. So it's like coming from a background where you were ultra aware of the differences between people and their background and upbringing, and then trying to find a field where you could serve those differences--

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. That's a great way of putting it.

JOANNE TEH:

--and help people overcome it. Thank you. That's an awesome way of thinking about it. Yeah. How did you end up going into environmental science for your undergrad?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Right. So I came into college, honestly, super not confident about my skills. Some of the skills I thought I were confident in were writing. And I tried to bring that to the forefront in the classes that I took. But after my first year of taking classes and being undeclared, I realized that I wanted to go into some kind of STEM field. And I think that a lot of you might have heard a lot of environmental science students at Berkeley say this. But I think that a lot of the-- even a lot of the people that I met in environmental science were like, I want to do STEM, but I don't want to go super hard in STEM. I don't want to be an engineer. I don't want to-- so environmental science seemed like a good medium to me. It seemed safe, but also very interesting. And while I'm not an expert in all things like environmental, I was able to be around people who had a huge passion for the environment in a way that I honestly didn't grow up with, but that I always had appreciated. I had always appreciated nature. My family had always been very-- We would go frequently on our family outings to hikes, as opposed to doing things, I don't know, indoors. Going out to dinner, things like that. That wasn't really a family. We would do free family things. So I think that's something that I really appreciated about my undergrad experience. And the program also allowed for-- in your undergraduate thesis project, a lot of room for diversity in what people could study. So that was a really cool aspect of my undergrad, too. Even though, obviously, like all of us, I had a lot of doubts about how good enough I was and how smart I was. And did I know enough about environmental science? And then, the older I've gotten, I've realized, it doesn't matter really what you know now. It's about what you continue to study. And even if somebody had years of experience at the age of 18, I don't know how, on a certain topic, that's great for them. But that doesn't have to be for you to study that. So that's what I learned in my undergrad. Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

I really like that quote. It's not really about what you knew before-- I'm probably missing it out. But it's what you continue to study. I like that. That's awesome.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

JOANNE TEH:

OK. So then after environmental science. Oh. Yeah. By the way, I'm also on CNR. Go CNR.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Woo.

JOANNE TEH:

So after environmental science, environmental health is the next obvious pivot.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. It was really that undergraduate thesis project that I think put me-- in that undergraduate thesis project, I'd use like GIS. And I had also utilized this class that I had taken by Jovan Lewis on, I think, it was called Race, Space, & Geography. Such a great undergraduate class. I would recommend taking. So I love the environmental science allowed me to take classes like that. Oh. Race, Space, & Inequality. That's what it was. I'm not sure if he's still teaching it, but if anybody's listening to this and is an undergrad, you should take that class. And so yeah. That's what got me into environmental health, realizing that those things could be intersected. Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

Awesome. How did you feel entering the environmental health space? Was the adjustment weird? How was it?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. So I think that I was in not a unique position, because I knew a lot of people who had gone straight from undergraduate to graduate school. I would say, if I were to give an estimate, which it could be completely wrong, but maybe like half of the people came directly from undergrad. I could be very wrong about that. There were also a lot of other people who I met that came from working for a few years who are a lot older than me, who have full life, like kids and a job that they've continued, even as they're in graduate school, things like that. So it was an adjustment just because I was around people who were coming from all of these different backgrounds. And I think that for me, I still felt fresh out of college. Very young in a sense in that way. And so I had to adjust and develop what I thought was like a professional, I don't know, mask.[LAUGHTER] But it ended up being-- I don't know. So that's something I still go back and forth with. Everyone says that you feel like what is it? Basically, if you keep trying to do the thing you're trying to do, you won't feel like an imposter anymore. Everybody feels like an imposter at first. But for me, that was a really big source of imposter syndrome. Was just the fact that I felt very young and inexperienced in what I was doing compared to the people around me who have had real life work experience and what they were doing. So I think that was a source of that. And then as I have continued in the program, I realized that there are a lot of people who feel like they don't know what they're doing. And the best thing that you can do is just be honest about where you're at. And people are so willing to help you. That's something I think that I struggled with a lot in the program, despite there's so many people who make themselves available to support you. And sometimes, yeah. You do feel alone in your studies or whatever. But for the most part, if you reach out, people will help you. And I think that that's also just been a really big learning curve for me because I think that I had thought growing up that your studies were supposed to be on your own. You're supposed to read all the books and watch all the right videos. And if you don't, then it's your fault, and no one should help you, which is so not true. Learning is such a group project. And that's another thing that Berkeley teaches you, and especially I think in graduate school. You do a lot of work on your own. But at the end of the day, unless you can share that with people, unless you can learn from others and ask questions and ask for help, it's not going to be very useful to just do your own thing.

JOANNE TEH:

That's a valuable lesson to learn.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. What were you going to say?

JOANNE TEH:

I don't know if I had anything else to say, but let me-- let me ask you another question then. So now that you are more well-adjusted to the environmental health field, what are you currently working on? What are you looking towards?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. So currently, I don't have plans in terms of a job. I don't have plans in terms of-- I really don't have plans, which is where I've heard many people were at in my position and was also very scary to me at first. But after talking to a few people, graduates of the program who had said that they had started work months after they ended graduation and did not have a job secured at the time of graduation, I feel a lot better about my decision. Yeah. I think that I'm going to take some time to travel. I'm going to take some time to myself and do things that I love, like reading. And ironically, I feel like I haven't read a lot of just personal types of books. You might relate to that. You're always reading papers, and then-- scientific papers. And then you're like, oh. What about this book? You're like, oh.

JOANNE TEH:

Yes. Yes. I definitely relate. All the fantasy, science fiction.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yes.

JOANNE TEH:

Romantic fiction books, I have seen on my shelf is crazy.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. Yeah. You get it. So it's tough to get that personal time in. So I think I'm going to take time to do that. And just recuperate after this experience.

JOANNE TEH:

That's awesome. So let's backtrack a little, because I realized I don't actually-- I never pinpointed where exactly you are. So you just graduated.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yes. Graduation is on Monday.

JOANNE TEH:

OK. Wow. Exciting.[LAUGHTER]

REZAHN ABRAHA:

So we're coming up. It's just around the corner. But all of my final projects are done or final exams are done. All that kind of stuff.

JOANNE TEH:

Wow. How do you feel?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. I'm still processing. I was talking to someone earlier last week, and I was like, I think I'm going to have an existential crisis when I exit schooling. And I'm just putting it off to a month from now. I think I already made plans to start taking classes, casual, language classes and things like that so that I don't feel like I'm missing out. I think I'm going to have a very big school FOMO in some ways.

JOANNE TEH:

FOMO. I never thought I'd hear the day where I would-- like, school FOMO, It's interesting.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

What languages are you interested in learning?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

I want to get more into learning Spanish. And I also want to practice my Japanese. That's been something that has been on my list for a very long time. But haven't made a priority. So I think that I'm going to try to go for doing those things.

JOANNE TEH:

You got this. Good luck. Yeah.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

Yeah. So actually, let's backtrack a little bit more, because I realized we skipped over all the stuff that you did in your time getting your MPH.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. Yeah. This journey has been so long and short at the same time. So I can start with-- so I did a few things. One of the things I did was work with Betsy North on the BiomSPHERE project, which was an initiative to collect data on air pollution and health impacts in the Central Valley. And so I got a chance to get more hands-on science experience. I got to work in a lab and be a lab assistant at the California Department of Public Health and spend time there. I got to help in the data collection and processing of samples. Of air pollution samples as part of that project. And that was also my summer practicum. So for folks that don't know, in this program, you have a summer practicum, and you basically have a job for the summer. And that's part of your learning experience in the program. So that was mine. And then I ended up. Continuing that work after the summer of the practicum into the fall and using some of the data, from the project, for my capstone project, my thesis project, and. I learned about the impacts of how the time you spend in certain what's called microenvironments or personal like sources, for example, your home or your workplace or your car. And how the time you spend in those environments impacts your exposure to volatile organic compounds or vapors or gas substances that easily vaporize into the air, which have harmful health effects. So that was my project. And that was a really important, I think, also experience for me in grad school just because I learned about the research process and how it can be very messy, sometimes, but also very rewarding and how there are so many people involved. And you have to work with. So many different kinds of people that as you continue, you realize, oh. We're all leaning on each other. We're all providing different things for the project. And yeah. It's an amazing thing. And it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of, I think, just-- yeah. Research, I feel like. And watching other people do it. Because other people using the-- or other students that are like, we're more leading the project. Shout out to Kimberly, Val, and [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah. Working with data and working with all different types of data can be very frustrating, but also insightful and rewarding. And yeah. I really hope that all of the data from the project is useful and able to help contribute in reducing some of those health impacts in the area. So that was one thing that I worked on. Another thing I worked on was, well, I was a graduate student instructor for a few different courses. One of them was the actually an undergraduate class. Environmental-- sorry. ESPM 50AC, if you've heard of it.

JOANNE TEH:

I was debating taking that next semester.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. And so ESPM 50AC, it's a great class. And I worked with three different undergraduate classes over the course of, I think-- I can't remember if it was-- I think it was one semester. And that was also a very big learning experience, also coming from just being an undergrad and suddenly having the responsibility of a graduate student instructor felt very big. So I was willing to take it on apparently. And realizing that I didn't have all of the answers to the questions. I think I was very worried about that initially at the job, I was like, OK. Yeah. How do I teach this course material to the best of my ability? And it was really just like a learning process. And the instructor was very great, Kurt Spreyer. So that was an amazing experience. And then as tough as it was, sometimes, I'm not going to lie, it was tough at times. And then in the fall, I transitioned to being a graduate student instructor for Health Policy and Management introduction course for, I think, all students in public health. In your first year, you take-- sorry. I'm blanking on the name.

JOANNE TEH:

No worries.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Health policy and management. But the introduction class. So I helped with that as well. And that was also a very big learning experience. Going from teaching undergrad classes to teaching my own peers was a huge transition also. So I learned a lot there. And then I transitioned into being a graduate student instructor for a mapping course for health equity. It's public health maps and spatial analysis for health equity. And at the top, Charlotte Smith also a great class. And then in that role, just learning to-- realizing that I had more skills than I thought and able to help troubleshoot all of these issues that student experienced. And for context, as an undergrad, I felt very unconfident when I came to those things, like working with GIS. And I always admired the GSIs, and I thought, wow. They know so much. They're so helpful. And I had this moment a couple of weeks ago, where I was helping a student. And I was working on a problem, I think, that I had had in undergrad and getting so frustrated with it, because I would spend hours working on these maps. And then I was able to help the student. And I was like, OK. Look at that. I've grown. So maybe learning by teaching kind of person.

JOANNE TEH:

That's awesome.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

So yeah. That's been also really a good experience. Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

How did you initially overcome your struggles with learning how to mentor other students, especially when you were teaching undergrads 50AC, how did you overcome that, I guess, obstacle?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah. Honestly, I think that I just had to realize that there were some things that, I first of all, I didn't know and I had to ask for help from the teaching team, from the instructor about questions that I couldn't answer. Because it was better to ask for help than just tried frantically to solve it on my own and then get frustrated. And then I also learned that mentorship is just a lot about like encouragement, I think. And it's like equal parts encouragement and providing helpful feedback. And both are super important. Because nobody just wants to be told they're doing a good-- I mean, OK. Maybe some people want to be told they're doing a good job all the time. I am one of them. But it's so important to have people tell you-- to help you fix things and to give you feedback that you're looking for, but you have to be willing to accept it. And so I think that that's something I learned and helped me overcome mentoring with students because some people want-- yeah. Some people just need to be told when they're working on something, it looks great. You're like, you're doing a great job. And that's what they need. That's what mentorship is for them. But then for another student, they're like, no. You need to help me figure out what is this issue that I'm having. What's wrong with my paper? What's wrong with my map? Or what's wrong with-- and some people want you to find an issue. And so you'll find an issue. Because the truth is, all work can be made better. And it's just like-- when those people that are willing to ask for that feedback and want it, they improve. So I think that there's two parts to that. And then that's helped me learn about myself too. Because I think I'm often very self-critical. And I don't-- as we talk about this. But I don't ask for help with things. So just being able to be like, everybody wants you to improve. And I think that's the culture in public health, and what I've learned. Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

Mhm. That's awesome. Wow. That's a unique take on mentorship that I wouldn't really get as an undergrad.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Yeah.

JOANNE TEH:

Yeah.

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Oh. Go ahead.

JOANNE TEH:

Oh. No. Sorry. I was going to ask you, this segues, but did you have any last thoughts before?

REZAHN ABRAHA:

Well, yeah. I have other thoughts on how I thought about mentorship in terms of just-- I was just relating. I just wanted to hear what you all had to say about it.

JOANNE TEH:

No. Go for it. I was to ask you, what you thought your most valuable lesson was from that mentorship experience, but please let me know what your--

REZAHN ABRAHA:

No. That's great. No, no, no. I want to hear your question. Yeah. So the most valuable experience, one of-- yeah. So one of the most rewarding was when I was helping a student. And then I was able to help them with a problem that I had had earlier. And then yeah. I think that-- because that for me is what helps build confidence. Is when you're able to help others with something, which also is like, yeah. I think in undergrad, some people have and some people don't. You study in groups or you don't or there's so many different things, places people are coming from at an undergrad at Berkeley that you're like, how do I figure this out, first of all? And it can just be a huge, as I'm sure you've experienced. Just a huge learning experience. So I think that mentoring others is like, I figured out how I want to mentor. And how in a way, I need a mentor myself, which is just to relax, it's going to be OK. You got this. And also ask for help.

JOANNE TEH:

Yeah. That's awesome. Hey, guys. This is Joanne Teh, your host for this episode. And we have reached the end of part 1 of this conversation with our wonderful guest. Don't click out yet, because part 2 of this conversation has already been posted. So check out our page to finish the conversation. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and follow us on Spotify and Instagram at Do The Change podcast.