Nina Michail - Health Policy and Management

Nina Michail knew early on that she was interested in health and research. But as an undergraduate biology major, she realized she wanted to pursue something other than biomedical research.

"I wanted to be in a field where I felt the work was having more of an impact on health quality and access," Michail says. When she discovered the Public Health Administration and Policy program, she thought it was the ideal balance between the research and social perspectives of health care.

Michail, who received her M.P.H. in May, especially liked the flexibility of her major. "The program really gave me leeway to explore my interests," says the 25-year-old, who focused largely on management and policy. Through her courses, as well as a research assistantship and field experience working with disease management programs, she continued to hone her skills.

In July, Michail began a fellowship at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New York, one of the country's largest heath systems. She is using her knowledge of health services research to explore quality of care and access to services throughout the system.

"We need to know the reasons why people don't get care and the breakdown in processes," Michail explains. "We're trying to work on innovation that's bench to bedside, so we can integrate it into the actual processes of care."