Interview with DIU alumna Leandra Rami-Wright:
Looking back on your time studying at DIU, what moment, person, subject, or event immediately springs to mind as having had a particular impact on you?
Two workshops from my time at DIU had a particularly strong impact on me. The hands-on session on structuring a CV was especially useful and helped me prepare a much stronger application for future opportunities. Equally influential was the health economics workshop. Its holistic approach to understanding how different parts of the public health system interact deepened my interest in the field and played an important role in motivating me to pursue the Master of Public Health program I’m now enrolled in at Harvard.
Is there a subject, method, or particular insight from your studies that has had a lasting impact on your professional perspective or that you still use today?
The statistics workshops had a lasting impact in my clinical research projects. It was taught exceptionally well, and it gave me a strong foundation for understanding the methods behind the studies we conduct. That knowledge shapes how I design, evaluate, and interpret research projects today.
If a good friend or colleague is considering whether studying at DIU is worthwhile: Based on your personal experience, what would you say is the greatest and most valuable “benefit” of studying/your time at DIU?
For me, the greatest benefit of studying at DIU was the ability to combine a full professional workload with meaningful academic progress. The remote-learning structure made it possible to stay engaged and productive in both areas. It’s a level of flexibility that I think many working professionals would really appreciate.
Regarding your master thesis: Did you publish your results in a journal? Could you share your topic or a surprising insight you gained?
I haven’t published my master’s thesis yet, but the project itself was very enriching. I worked with the UNICEF MICS dataset to investigate potential causes of the high under-five year child mortality in Nigeria. Along the way, I learned to apply survey weights and conduct regression analyses in R, which significantly strengthened my statistical skills.
