When School of Public Health alumna Cate Reilly begins her fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) next month, she will draw on her experiences as a researcher and public health communicator, as well as her belief in the importance of making scientific information accessible to policymakers and the public.

Reilly, who earned her MPH in public health nutrition in 2026, is SPH’s latest recipient of the ASPPH/CDC Public Health Fellowship Program, a collaboration between the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and the CDC that places recent public health graduates in positions to gain hands-on experience addressing some of the nation’s most pressing public health challenges. This fall, Reilly will begin a two-year position supporting respiratory disease communications within the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

For Reilly, the fellowship represents the next step in a career built around connecting public health research, communication, and policy. After studying global health and political science as an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Reilly joined the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, where she worked in infectious disease communications. In that role, she helped local health departments communicate with their communities during disease outbreaks, developed messaging around new public health data and talking points to support epidemiologists during media interviews.

After looking at multiple schools’ nutrition programs, Reilly chose the University of Minnesota School of Public Health for its strong nutrition program and faculty, like Mayo Professor Lisa Harnack, whose research aligned with her interests.

“When I was looking at graduate programs, I came across some of Lisa’s research papers, and they aligned so closely with my interests in food policy and food security,” Reilly said. “After she guest lectured in one of my classes, I sent her a cold email saying I was really interested in those topics and would love to get involved if there was any research happening in that space. It’s grown into a really wonderful collaboration.”

Specifically, that collaboration has included a role as a research assistant for Harnack and three first-authored papers. Working with Harnack, Reilly has co-authored research examining nutrition policy issues, including whether popular snack bars meet healthy nutrition standards and how the nutritional profiles of lactose-free and lower-lactose infant formulas compare with standard formulas. Reilly said she especially liked that the research had clear, real-world applications and that it addressed nutrition questions that could help inform food policy and give consumers better information.

“What I’ve really enjoyed over the past couple of years is exploring how research and communication work together to shape policy,” Reilly said. “I like doing the science to understand the evidence, then thinking about how to communicate those findings effectively to the public and to policymakers. Research to communication to policy, that’s the pipeline I’ve been interested in.”

Harnack noted that Reilly’s enthusiasm for research with real-world impact was evident from the start. “It was a joy to see Cate’s passion for carrying out policy-relevant nutrition research,” said Harnack. “She rapidly applied what she learned through coursework to the projects we worked on together. I can’t wait to see what comes next for Cate!”