Taylor Choe graduated from Fairfield University in 2021 with a B.S. in Public Health. She is working towards her MPH in Chronic Disease Epidemiology with the U.S. Health Justice concentration at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH). Outside of school, Taylor is the Co-YSPH Chairperson of the Yale Patient Navigator Program, a student collaboration between the Yale School of Medicine MD and PA Programs, Yale School of Nursing, Yale College, and Yale School of Public Health that work with adult and pediatric patients referred to us from the Primary Care Center, the Refugee Clinic, and IRIS – Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services.

During her time at Fairfield University, Taylor conducted an independent research and capstone project on perceptions of mental health resources and services and was awarded a grant from the Hardiman Scholars fund. She presented her findings virtually at the Society of Behavioral Medicine 42nd Annual Meeting & Scientific Session. In addition, Taylor worked with the Southwestern Area Health Education Center (SW AHEC) as an intern working on Connecticut’s creation of Training Vendor Criteria for Community Health Workers (CHW), which complied with CHW training vendor certification research across respective states to inform Connecticut’s creation of vendor requirements. Taylor also worked with the CT Department of Public Health in the Environmental Tracking Program as an intern to create health data profiles for different public health departments seeking accreditation. The purpose was to provide environmental tracking data such as COPD, asthma, heart disease, etc., to inform their community needs assessments.

Taylor is passionate about health equity, health disparities, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). She hopes to gain mixed methods research experience through the SASH lab that will allow her to utilize her epidemiology training and passion for qualitative and CBPR work.