BYU Master of Public Health

Our first years had a great Friendsgiving this weekend! They learned their cohort is full of great cooks and they were grateful to spend time w/ each other outside of the classroom!

Alumni Spotlight: Emma Semus!

"Since graduating in April, I have worked for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality in the Division of Water Quality. I currently works on health communication about water quality issues like harmful algae blooms and waterborne pathogens all over the state! I find it so rewarding, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do work that I feel contributes to our divinely appointed role as stewards of both the earth and of God’s children."

Here are some of the highlights from the mph bbq this past weekend! First and second years combined for a fun afternoon and break from studying and homework!

Our wonderful 2026 Cohort hasn't been presented on social media yet! So better late than never, here is a picture from last fall of this amazing group of students from all around the world. They have completed much of their field work now and are making great strides in the world of Public Health.

Meet the 2027 MPH Cohort! There are 24 amazing students ready to learn! We have students from all over the country and world including the Philippines, Mongolia, Chile, California, Maryland, Wisconsin, and more!

Some of the international MPHers went on a trip to Southern Utah this past weekend! They visited some national parks and had a wonderful time learning about leadership, vision and pioneers while enjoying each other's company!!

Here's another student spotlight for our amazing 1st year MPH: Kassie Sanders!!!

✨ Student Spotlight ✨

This month we had the pleasure of hearing from Alex Anderson MPH 2nd year. Thank you, Alex, for being willing to share your story with us.

This past Monday and Wednesday we had a wonderful experience participating in the Power Dynamics Workshop led by Dr. Crandall and Dr. Crookston as a cohort with some other faculty members!

We learned about Aikido Model, which is to raise self-awareness, to have healthy dialogues and to act/collaborate when facing differences in culturale, gender, race or other contexts. We also got the chance to practice the dialogue skills as small groups through active listening, discovery mode, sharing truth, surfacing assumptions, suspending judgments and attending to the "whole".

One of the activities that impressed people the most were the privilege walk after learning what power up/down was and the differentiation lab. During privilege walk, we all started the same, but as the privileges got called one by one, we noticed the differences and changed our views on privileges. As for the differentiation lab, we were divided into groups based on gender, social status or race and needed to think about the stereotypes we had towards other groups and how we viewed our own group.

It was such an inspiring experience that equipped us with some new perspectives and love for others when we work and serve people in the public health settings in the future!

This year we had some MPHers attend a Leadership retreat for underrepresented students through the BYU Sorenson Center. It was an overnight trip to Spring Haven. The retreat included workshops about being an effective leader. Viema Taito said it was an experience "where we learned more about our leadership strengths & learned from one another."

Read more about what our MPHers thought of the experience in the post!

Most of our 2nd years completed their fieldwork over the summer. Alex Swain. MPH 2nd year, shares with us her experience this past summer in Washington DC.