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Ashmita Singh on graduation day with the APERSU team — Allison Soprovich, Jiabi Wen, and Jeff Johnson. (Photo: supplied)

Armed with her new master’s degree in public health, Ashmita Singh is firing off job applications to leading global institutions in public health.

“The ideal would be to work with a health systems approach at a global level,” Singh says. “But I still want to be sent off for field visits. That is something I love to do and never want to give up.”

It was the promise of hands-on experiences throughout the degree that drew Singh to the ÌìÑÄÉçÇø to study public health. She took full advantage, earning the Dean’s Gold Medal in the process. 

“Ashmita had an exceptional record in both her academic work and her practicum experience,” says Jeff Johnson, professor and former interim dean, who also leads the (APERSU), where Singh did one of her practicum placements. 

“Through the problem-based learning approach within our courses, students will be exposed to real-life problems,” explains Johnson, who teaches the introductory “This Is Public Health” course. Students start off working through a wildfire scenario that threatens a First Nations community in northern Alberta.

Problem-based learning is part of the School of Public Health student experience, whether they are studying for the master of public health (MPH), master of science (MSc), PhD, master of arts in community engagement (MACE) or one of the new online graduate certificates for working professionals. They learn , such as working in a team, planning, and writing policy briefs.

Throughout their degrees, students build towards the “work-integrated learning” practicum placement, the capstone course where they offer their skills to employers ranging from municipal, provincial or federal government agencies to Indigenous health authorities. 

“I’ve always said that public health is everybody's business, so we could imagine students working with almost any organization,” says Johnson, noting that sometimes the short-term placements turn into full-time jobs after graduation.

The approach is so integral that the School of Public Health is now in the process of hiring for the new role of experiential learning officer.

“I got to apply what I learned in classrooms”

Singh wanted to deepen her expertise in knowledge translation, so she took on a variety of tasks from managing APERSU’s social media accounts to developing plain-language summaries and creating resources, all aimed at building understanding of the value of the patient voice in medical research.

She also gained public engagement skills with the Rehabilitation Robotics Lab, where she still has a part-time job as a project co-ordinator. As part of a project called “From the Ground Up,” the team held a workshop with more than 50 participants in Airdrie, looking at how to improve access to mental health services for rural people in , which surrounds Calgary. 

“I think the highlight was when we were with the community, when we were talking to them and listening to them,” she recalls. “I got to apply what I learned in classrooms, including how to actually capture the essence of what the needs are in the community.”

Singh presented the team’s work at a Calgary conference run by the , winning a prize for best research poster. The resulting research paper is being prepared for publication, and more training workshops will be developed with the community.

“I found my community”

Singh, who was born in Bihar in eastern India, was never supposed to get into health care. Her father was a tireless physician who worked with patients until the day he died. His daughter resisted the idea of medicine, instead training to be an anthropologist and doing research on Himalayan religious practices in Uttarakhand. 

Then she learned about , an HIV project run in India by Johns Hopkins University.

“As an anthropologist, you’re trained to be adaptable,” Singh says, so she took the opportunity to switch her focus to public health. 

“How to maneuver through problems, how to work with governments, how to work with community — I learned from my mentors over there and I still carry that forward,” she says. “One thing I cannot forget is how to make your work fun. That is something I learned from my team back in India.”

Arriving in Canada in August 2023, she was suddenly alone again. She turned to Elder Bert Auger, who shares Indigenous knowledge with students in the School in many ways, including as an instructor in SPH 530 “This is Public Health”. 

“I was feeling lonely and I shared this with him. He just looked me in the eye, kept his hand on his heart and said, ‘You will find your community.’ And the way he said it and with the intensity he said it, I believed it. So I found my community.”

After applying for 60 part-time jobs, she landed the role at the Rehabilitation Robotics Lab and found a new team to join.

“Rehab is anything that comes before, during and after your hospital visit, so it’s a large part of public health,” Singh says. “At the lab, I've learned the culture of helping and being there for the team.”

Along the way, Singh had the chance to attend the Johns Hopkins in Tanzania, learning with other young health-care leaders from around the world. 

Now that she’s completed her coursework, Singh is focused on finishing up her role at the Rehabilitation Robotics Lab and finding her next challenge somewhere in global public health. 

“I miss classes, to be honest. I'm a bit of an academia geek,” she confesses.

For Jeff Johnson, the SPH path was tailored to meet the needs of students just like Singh. 

“One of our goals across the program is to give a lot of variety in experience so the students develop different skills in different settings, but also kind of find themselves in that process.”