The health studies boom

WHEN ABBY CELENTANO, ’25, ARRIVED at the University of Richmond, she thought she wanted to pursue a pre-med track and become a doctor. Or maybe a physician assistant. Or maybe a nurse. But after taking an introductory course with health studies professor Rick Mayes, she discovered a passion for the “behind the scenes of health care.”

“I found it intertwined what I was good at with what I was interested in,” says Celentano (above), a double major in health studies and business administration from Malvern, Pennsylvania. “The major can be so broad but also so tailored at the same time. The professors are very open—if I say I want to learn about the financing of insurance, they find someone for me to talk to.”

The combination has worked out very well for her. Before the start of her senior year, she had already accepted an employment offer from Johnson & Johnson, where she interned working in research and development for oncology therapies. Post-graduation, she will join a rotational program, beginning with an 18-month position working on the medical technology financial planning and analysis team.

Celentano is one of a growing number of Richmond students gravitating to health studies, which has seen enrollment increase substantially in recent years. The program’s disciplinary seeds lie in the 2007 launch of a minor in medical humanities, which was designed to provide pre-med students with a stronger social sciences and humanities background. Health studies, as the discipline eventually came to be called, grew steadily, becoming a full-fledged department in 2021 with a major built around a core public health curriculum of health policy, global health, and epidemiology. The faculty has grown from two professors in 2021 to five today, with a search underway for two more.

Health studies is not new at the university. In fact, it was present at Westhampton College’s founding in 1914. Three of Westhampton’s first five faculty members taught health-related topics such as nutrition, sanitation, and public hygiene, in the day’s terminology. Two of these women were physicians. One, Margaret Nolting, was the second woman in Virginia to earn a medical degree.

“Health studies has long been an area of study at UR,” says Kathryn F. Jacobsen, professor of health studies and William E. Cooper Distinguished University Chair. “Amazing women were teaching health studies here 100 years ago, and we’re building on their legacy.”

The program’s recent resurgence reflects the diversity of careers in public health and the health care industry. Some students enroll in the major to augment a pre-medical, pre-dental, or another clinical track. Others are preparing for roles in hospital administration, health policy, global health research, medical technology, and more. The COVID-19 pandemic then further heightened interest in public health.

“We get a big chunk of students who come to U of R who are pre-med,” says Rick Mayes. He is the department’s first chair and played an integral role in its establishment alongside Jacobsen, the other original faculty member of the department. Newer faculty include Margaret Tait, an expert in health policy and politics, and Courtney Blondino, who specializes in epidemiology and mental health and substance use comorbidity.

“Some students have been pre-med since they were 5 and haven’t really thought 100% about it,” Mayes says. “By virtue of taking classes and other things, they realize, ‘Oh, if I want to be in the health care field and helping people, there are many options in addition to being a physician.’ We’re the department that explains those options to them and offers courses that outline different paths.”

For Hung Pham, ’25, the health studies major opened his eyes to the social determinants of health. He is pursuing majors in biology and health studies.

Pham, who grew up in Chesterfield, Virginia, just south of Richmond, arrived at college interested in a health-related career. In his early coursework, he fell in love with the natural sciences and their connection to medicine. Then a first-year course on health policy gave him more to think about. “I’d never really thought about treating people from a more holistic perspective. The science is cool, but there’s so much more to health than just science. I wanted to add a public health foundation to my biological understanding.”

Pham, who is planning on physician assistant school after graduation, says the health studies curriculum has changed the way he thinks about the profession. “Not only will I know the scientific reasons of why I’m doing this or that, but I also need to think about the person as a person and understand root causes outside of their symptoms,” he says. “Hopefully I can recognize these issues and provide better care, not only through medical interventions, but through prevention and a more humanitarian perspective."

The health studies program places a strong emphasis on connecting classroom concepts to real-world issues through study abroad, research, internships, and community engagement. For many students, these curricular and cocurricular experiences are pivotal in shaping their academic interests and career goals.

MaryGrace Apostoli, ’11, crafted her own interdisciplinary health care major as a student with Mayes as mentor before the health studies program formally existed. She credits study abroad for giving her a global comparative lens. As a student, she spent a semester in Denmark and also spent time in Peru. “What just blew my mind was that there are so many things that contribute to health, longevity, and quality of life that are not directly related to science or curative medicine,” she says. “The systems that support health care and equitable access to health are so much more significant in determining whether somebody lives or dies and how well they live.”

The revelation sparked her interest in “the nonscientific aspects of the health care system—how our systems are constructed, what determines who gets care, and how good that care is,” she says. “It was a very transformative experience for me.”

After graduation, Apostoli worked in the international division of the Advisory Board, focusing on helping hospitals learn from one another about how to improve the efficiency of the administrative aspects of running a hospital. She now leads a solution engineering team for the health care and life sciences division of a technology company.

“I don’t think I ever would have had the confidence to take advantage of those international work experiences if I hadn’t gotten that foundation from UR,” she says. “It turned me into the person I am today.”

Senior Usra Karar has also been shaped by international experiences. She studied in India, South Africa, and Argentina, which gave her a global perspective on health care systems and community-based approaches. She also worked with the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority, where she worked on retaining health care talent in Virginia. She entered Richmond intending to follow a pre-dental track, but she is now exploring multiple options as she nears graduation.

“Public health has always interested me because we were in the pandemic when I was in high school, so I saw public health efforts be put at the forefront,” she says. Going abroad gave her comparative examples. “I learned that there are different ways to approach health and sometimes more efficient ways compared to the U.S.”

Professor Nigel James, who joined the health studies faculty in 2024, bridges theory and practice in his teaching. Trained as a public health specialist, he has led maternal and child health initiatives and researched health financing innovations in low- and middle-income countries. He has worked and studied across the world, including in Thailand, Switzerland, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and his native Zimbabwe. He did his doctoral work, a dual degree in health policy and demography, at Penn State.

“I pride myself on teaching not only what I’ve read, but what I’ve experienced,” he says. “I draw examples from responding to Ebola in West Africa or cholera outbreaks where I’ve worked. I show data visualizations to contrast health indicators in the U.S. versus other countries. Bringing my active research into the classroom makes things tangible for students.”

He cites the health studies department’s interdisciplinary nature and attentive mentorship as two of its core strengths. Trust, he says, is key for students exploring pathways they hadn’t previously considered.

“This is a department where professors really care about students,” he says. “I was told when I came here that students really don’t care much about what you know until they realize how much you care about them.”

As health studies majors approach graduation, professors provide intensive mentoring to help them discern their next steps, from gap years to graduate school to launching a career. Alumni also play a crucial role by returning to campus and talking with students about their professional journeys.

“We spend a lot of time in advising [meetings] discussing things students can do after they graduate that build on what they learned in their courses,” Mayes says. “If you like this material, good news: There are tons of jobs, fellowships, and grad schools you can pursue. Connecting them with alumni working in the field is incredibly valuable.”

That network proved helpful for Sherzel Smith, ’13, a trailblazer like Apostoli who designed her own health studies major with Mayes as mentor before the program formally existed. She came to Richmond intent on pursuing a pre-med track but began to rethink that goal as she took classes and met alumni working in various fields. She appreciated how Mayes created a home for students who were interested in health care but uncertain about becoming doctors.

“Even though it wasn’t formally a major yet, there were alumni who felt part of that family,” Smith says. She designed her course of study in the early days of the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. It was a time of wide-ranging public discussions about systems for health care delivery and its costs.

“I realized that a stronger health care system is a better way to help a larger number of people than being a physician working with patients one-on-one,” she says. “I did the interning and the volunteering with patients. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it. Those were tremendous experiences. I’m glad I did them because it was good to find out that I wasn’t crazy about clinical care, but I still had an interest in health care. I started asking what else I can do in areas that I’m really interested in and strong in, like research, data, operations, and processes.”

After earning a degree in Amsterdam in global health and working internationally, Smith eventually returned home to the Bahamas for family reasons. Today she directs outpatient clinics and patient intake for the only private hospital system in the country.

“Dr. Mayes runs through my mind all the time—I often think about how he would handle things that come up,” she says. “I feel really lucky I was able to get the kind of training I got at Richmond. You could have never told me back in 2010 when I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore that in 12 or 13 years I’d be in charge of seven facilities. I would never have accepted that and would never have had that kind of vision if it wasn’t for Dr. Mayes.”

Shermin Uzair, a senior from Leesburg, Virginia, also came to Richmond intending to pursue pre-med. Her personal experience affirmed that track as she got deeper into the curriculum. She spent winter break wrapping up her MCAT preparation and will soon apply to medical schools. She says that adding a major in health studies on top of her biology major has been an important component of her education. She’d never been introduced to terms like “social determinants” or “social drivers” of health until she started taking courses in the health studies major, though she was generally familiar with the underlying concepts.

“Learning about the social drivers of health really broadened my understanding of health outcomes that aren’t just biological,” she says. “I think every pre-med or pre-health student should have that understanding so you can provide more patient-centered care.”

One particularly meaningful class she took was taught by one of the many Richmond alumni who contribute their expertise as mentors and, in this case, as faculty. The professor, Kerrissa MacPherson, graduated from Richmond in 2011 with degrees in biology and leadership studies. She then returned to complete her master’s in nonprofit studies in 2018 through the School of Professional and Continuing Studies. Today, she is pursuing a doctorate and is a program manager of community health for Bon Secours in Richmond.

During spring semester of Uzair’s junior year, MacPherson taught a course on nonprofit community health care. The course, Uzair says, “was eye-opening.” The concepts related to the social drivers of health care were similar to what she’d studied in earlier classes, but this one focused on the city of Richmond as a case study.

The course included tours of local medical and historical sites, including areas underserved by medical services, grocery stores, and other health-impacting services. At one stop, in the parking lot of a church, Uzair stood in the southern part of Jackson Ward and looked across the gulley of I-95 at the northern part of the district. When the highway was built, it bisected the historically Black neighborhood, decimating its character and displacing nearly 2,000 families. The experience underscored for Uzair the potential of policies and practices to disproportionately harm already disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“Actually standing there and seeing the separation of Jackson Ward with that highway running through was—I mean, I took a moment of reflection there,” she says. “And then we drove through food deserts on the east side. We were driving for miles, and the only thing we saw were dollar stores and gas stations. No major grocery stores and no healthy food options for the communities that live there. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

Such experiences are important for students’ education as they prepare for health-related careers, whether in clinical care, administration, or some other aspect of the health care industry. James says they also help explain why students are increasingly attracted to the major. It’s similar to the effect that COVID-19 had on further spurring enrollment growth: Students are seeing examples of public health impacts with their own eyes and in their own lives.

“When students’ lives are so deeply impacted by something, you don’t have to convince them why these issues are important because they’re living it,” he says. “We have courses on health care policy, epidemiology, and global health that speak directly to what they’re seeing in the news every day.”

Mayes emphasizes that the health studies program’s expansion stems not just from one factor, but many tributaries flowing together—the draw of an interdisciplinary curriculum, increasing interest in health careers, and opportunities for experiential learning and alumni mentorship.

“We give students who are passionate about health a place to thrive,” Mayes says. “We convey that there are so many ways they can make a difference, whether that’s delivering care directly or shaping the systems that keep people healthy. Wherever their specific path leads, we prepare them to be changemakers.”