‘The beauty of public health is its interconnectedness’
Student Government President Disha Ganjegunte, SM ’25, brings positive energy and action to international fieldwork and public health advocacy.
October 24, 2024 – Last month, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health student Disha Ganjegunte joined policymakers, entrepreneurs, and changemakers from around the world for Climate Week NYC. She was invited to attend multiple events, including those hosted by the United Nations, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Clinton Global Initiative, and joined fellow recipients of beVisioneers: The Mercedes- Benz Fellowship and other youth leaders to talk about planet-positive innovation.
“It’s inspiring to be surrounded by peers who are driving change globally. I feel a deep responsibility to ensure that my perspective and the communities that have shaped me are represented, so that our narratives are defined by us, not for us,” said Disha, who recently started the second year of her degree program in the Department of Global Health and Population. But she noted that it’s frustrating when the bold ideas shared at these types of events fail to pan out after the momentum fades. She said, “Change must go beyond words, and until those most impacted [by threats] are included in the process, progress will remain slow and incomplete.”
From policy meetings to international fieldwork, Disha’s burgeoning career in public health has been marked by a desire to connect across differences and use her voice to make change. This year, she’s bringing her positive energy to her new role as head of the Harvard Chan Student Government Association.
Disha’s goals include helping find ways to encourage more prospective students from diverse backgrounds to apply. She also wants to help current students take advantage of opportunities to engage at other Harvard schools, network with alumni, and make their voices heard on current public health issues.
“Disha has just begun her term, and her enthusiasm is already shining through. We’re eager to collaborate with her this year,” said Director of Student Affairs Leah Kane.
“With her excellent skills as a student leader and communicator, she brings a vibrant energy and passion for public health.”
‘Always more to learn and do’
Disha almost didn’t apply to Harvard Chan School, because the University seemed like something out of a movie, she said. But when it comes to following her passions, Disha has from a young age been willing to dive in and take a risk. By the time she was looking at graduate schools, she’d already racked up a wide range of accomplishments. She has worked with communities worldwide, focusing on conflict resolution, nutrition, health systems, and governance initiatives. In 2023, she collaborated with UNICEF and was quoted in the Global Outlook Report, one of the few youth leaders representing her continent. Additionally, she directed and starred in a short film, which she said aims to use storytelling as a tool to educate and initiate advocacy. Harvard Chan School seemed like the ideal next step, she said, and she wanted to at least be able to say she had tried.
Disha had long aspired to become a doctor and was accepted into a joint admissions medical school program. However, she came to recognize that public health was a better fit for her skills and her passion for equity. Though her path to public health was unconventional, she said that she now realizes that her journey was shaped early in life.
Born in India, Disha immigrated to the U.S. with her parents as a baby. She grew up near the U.S.-Mexico border, in El Paso, Texas. Personal health issues in addition to working with low-income patients at the local hospitals gave her a crash course in the health system’s shortcomings. And the anti-immigration rhetoric of the past few years fueled her activism—particularly after a gunman targeted Hispanic people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, and a detention camp for child migrants opened in Tornillo. Having worked with congressional offices at the local, state, and national levels, she said that she is passionate about learning how policy and systemic change can be an avenue for impacting health on a broader scale than clinical practice.
She chose Harvard Chan School in part because of the international experience the master’s program has to offer. She participated in this year’s Global Health and Population Winter Session course in Brazil, where she also worked on a health systems project with the Secretariat of Health and local partners on minimizing maternal mortality in Manaus. And over the summer, she traveled to Nigeria through the Harvard Center for International Development, based at Harvard Kennedy School. She worked with the Murtala Muhammed Foundation (MMF), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that supports vulnerable communities including survivors of the 2014 abduction of Chibok schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. Disha’s work for the organization included identifying gaps in its program evaluation and data collection and developing questionnaires and evaluation strategies to enhance impact assessment and feedback mechanisms.
Disha is still figuring out what she wants to do after graduation, but for now she is grateful to have had the opportunity to experience the ways that many different entities—including NGOs, governmental agencies, and grassroots activists—work to make change, she said.
“The beauty of public health is its interconnectedness,” Disha said. “As a professional in this field, I’ll never be bored. There’s always more to learn and more to do.”
Quick hits
Favorite ways to unwind: “I like to FaceTime with my mom, sister, and grandma, and friends. I’ve been traveling a lot over the past few years, so it’s very important to me to stay connected. I also love exploring my creative side through spoken word poetry and spending time with animals—especially my dog.”
What I’m watching: “There are two shows that I’m obsessed with right now: Abbott Elementary is a beautiful show about a school in Philadelphia. It’s so real, and so funny. And Maid on Netflix. It talks about the systemic injustices that exist for women who are overcoming domestic violence, or just trying to become independent, and the obstacles that life throws at them.”
—Amy Roeder
Photos: Kent Dayton; Courtesy of Disha Ganjegunte
