Harvard Chan financial aid recipients turning their visions into reality

Harvard Chan financial aid recipients—Akshay Narayanan, MPH ’26; Abby Charles, DrPH candidate; and Cora Cunningham, SM ’26—discuss their current work, share their goals for the future, and reflect on how donor support has helped turn their visions into reality.

Before Harvard Chan School, Narayanan, spent years working with vulnerable children in shelter homes and orphanages in India. With a deep commitment to ensuring children and families like the ones he worked with were not overlooked, his research at the School explores approaches for community organizations in India to expand and innovate access to care. In the future, Narayanan wants to build data-driven, sustainable systems that support young people’s health, stability, and confidence across India and beyond. 

Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, living with lupus, Charles wants to showcase why those with lived experience should have a voice in designing the programs and policies that affect their lives, and has spent her career turning that understanding into action.

While on a service learning trip to Nepal, Cunningham, witnessed a childbirth that showed her firsthand how gender equity, health equity, and gaps in socioeconomic status deeply impact individual lives and communities. The trip inspired her to purse a master’s degree at Harvard Chan School, where she focuses on water sanitation and hygiene in conflict and post-conflict environments around the world.

These students will go on to reach thousands of people—improving health, advancing equity, and building a world where everyone can thrive—because of donor support.