Nancy Le '20
What have you been up to since graduation?
Since graduation, I’ve worked in public health, life sciences consulting, and government program oversight. Committed to improving population health and health equity, I went back to school and just graduated with my master of public health in health policy and management from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. I now work at ATI Advisory, a DC-based health policy research consulting firm, on prescription drug reimbursement and drug pricing policy.
Who made an impact on your life at Northwestern?
Greg Miller, Edith Chen, and the staff at the Foundations of Health Research Center initiated my interest in policy research, and being a student within the School of Education and Social Policy cemented it. I’m a changemaker at heart and a changemaker by training, and I really admired all of the research coming out of the Institute for Policy Research. I haven’t stopped finding ways to be a part of this world.
Additionally, Liz McMath hosted a Northwestern externship at her life sciences consulting firm and was my mentor while I was an intern there. I was a first-generation student and her mentorship and career set me down the path of working in life sciences and gave me leverage for so many opportunities I received down the line. Thanks for taking a chance on me way back when!
Lastly, I met my soulmate in Carolina Alvarez ’20, who has been through perhaps way too much with me. To this day, she is my best friend of almost a decade, and we regularly visit each other from coast to coast. From lugging 50 banh mi sandwiches from Argyle Street to Evanston for Ayers’ Sunday munchies to teaching our Design Your Life class how to use a TikTok filter during the pandemic via Zoom, Carol and I may have too many memories together to count. Thank you for knowing all the different versions of me and loving me all the same.