Betelhem Muno

fellow 2023

Betelhem Aklilu Muno is a current Master of Public Health Epidemiology student with a focus on maternal and child health at the University of Washington. She holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and a minor in Health Studies from Haverford College. During her formative college years, she learned about public health policy making and grew her coding and analytical skills exponentially. A particular highlight was when her coursework led to applied practice. For instance, she created a five-week program that unpacked the factors that influence the sexual and reproductive health of Eritrean and Ethiopian women and girls with a woman from the Department of Health in Seattle. She also had the chance to apply the method of translating research into a proposed policy/program at The Greenlining Institute. More recently, she started the Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program at UW. There she worked on the Washington Merged Longitudinal Administrative Data (WMLAD) to create household identifiers that could start answering questions about poverty at the household level. 

Now, as a graduate student, her work involves supporting a community engagement component of study focusing on the impact of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 on communities of color and thinking about structural racism in HIV/AIDS research. As a SCOPE Fellow, she will contribute to the implementation portion of the LAUNCH. Her interest lies between maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, healthcare access, and equitable structural changes. She hopes to develop skills that will allow her to work in the US and globally to support Black communities.