Hi All!
My name is Emily Thompson, I grew up on a farm outside of a very small town
in Northern Minnesota. I completed my undergraduate degree at the
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in May 2005, with my B.S. in Child
Psychology and a minor in Russian. I started at the School of Public Health
in the Fall of 2005 in the Maternal and Child Health with an Epidemiology
emphasis program, however, after discovering a more passionate interest in
infectious disease, I switched to the Epidemiology program. I was always
interested in public health due to my mom, who is a nurse and was the ICP
at the hospital up in Bemidji, MN. She also did a lot of traveling,
particularly to Russia, for various health prevention and education
partnerships with the town of Tomsk, Siberia. It was through meeting people
from Tomsk, that I became interested in Russian. Meeting those individuals,
and hearing about their experiences further deepened my interest in
international health and infectious diseases.
What I want to do in my future career in public health constantly changes.
I am interested in working as an epidemiologist for either the state or a
county health department, as well as working in health education/promotion,
I would also loveto have the opportunity to do public health work internationally.
I currently work at the Minnesota Department of Health as a student worker
for the Emerging Infections Program. I primarily work on a research
studying looking at community acquired resistant staph infections
(CA-MRSA), as well as do a bit with MRSA surveillance for the state.
I am really excited about attending the CIDRAP conference in Orlando. The
speakers lined up to lead different sessions and give presentations sound
like they are experts in their field, and I'm sure I will learn a lot of
business preparedness as it is related to a pandemic, something which I
know very little about. I am really looking forward to this great
opportunity!