Sydney Etten

Community Health and Spatial Analyst, August 2023-Present

As I approach the finish line of my time at Iowa State, I have been reflecting on the success, growth, opportunities, and overall fun I have had over the past handful of years.  While I am conscious of the hard work and dedication I have put in to get where I am, none of this would have been possible without the strong foundation provided by my mentors, team members, and the culture at the Public Science Collaborative.

As an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to find my niche in a research project, which was a pivotal moment in realizing that I want to dedicate the rest of my life to improving the health and lives of rural communities. From this first project, I learned how to communicate my findings in the most engaging way and how to design a scientific poster for maximum impact. I was also trained to facilitate workshops, focus groups, and interviews during this period, which helped instill confidence in my abilities. I have never felt uncomfortable or out of my element because of the training and refinement I received from the team at The Public Science Collaborative.

I have had the opportunity to develop interactive training for people in recovery in Iowa, and during the feedback session, I learned valuable lessons on designing and framing my products for the audience who will use them. The initial training iterations, while incredibly impactful, created a literacy barrier for the intended audience. Through interdisciplinary and innovative team meetings, we were able to redesign the material and overcome cognitive barriers within the study population.

I have had many opportunities to be innovative and to refine marketable skills during my time in 317 East. For example, I spent two weeks in Uganda working with cocoa farmers to understand the support and resources this vulnerable and overlooked population would need to adopt alternative post-harvest disposal methods for their cocoa pod husks, a waste product that was increasing their malaria risk. During data collection, we leveraged Field Maps to map the farms and develop model farms for CSRL. From the qualitative data collected, I knew that our interventions would need to be accessible to overcome literacy barriers, easily adoptable, and delivered quickly before cocoa became embedded in their culture, as corn has been embedded in Iowan culture. From this project, we have already produced three products, one specifically designed to address the limitations of ISU Extension and Outreach staff and cocoa farmers.

Recently, I have been developing dashboards for communities to access water quality data. While this work is not associated with the Public Science Collaborative, I have relied on the foundation and principles I learned there. These dashboards came to fruition during a listening session where community members vocalized how desperately they needed accessible data. I developed two iterations of the dashboard based on community feedback: one in Shiny and one in Tableau. These dashboards would not have been as tailored to the audience or as well built without the foundation and training I have received in translational science.

My marketability spans beyond academia, and I have experience developing data visualizations and dashboards for a Top 20 Global Investment Bank in its Mergers and Acquisitions Division.

As I close out my master’s here at Iowa State, I have worked hard to model the level of excellence I am exposed to daily, and it has paid off in the opportunities that have presented themselves. I have received several opportunities for my future, including admission offers for the Epidemiology program at the University of Iowa, University of Texas Southwestern, and the Applied Epidemiology Pathway at Johns Hopkins.

-Sydney Etten