Dr. Pamina Gorbach is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Dr. Gorbach received her M.H.S. in International Health from Johns Hopkins University and later went on to receive her Dr.Ph., in Maternal Child Health & Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Gorbach is currently in charge of a HIV/AIDS Fogarty supported training program in Cambodia. Her research focuses on behaviors involved in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Dr. Gorbach has worked in countries such Peru, Ghana, and Costa Rica.

What led you to pursue a global health career?

Growing up with an infectious diseases physician father and a mother working for Departments of Public Health it was a natural progression. As a child I lived in Calcutta, India and we often traveled as a family so I was aware at a young age of social and physical disparities and the career path to address them. So it wasn’t an accident, I had a clear path to pursue a career in global health. From a young age I thought my job would be to contribute to bettering the world – and spent some time figuring out how to in school. I began pursuing this journey between college and graduate school spending a year as a volunteer in Peru. I worked in the slums of Lima for a community organization run by researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (now Bloomberg School of Public Health) where I worked on child nutrition and home-based rehabilitation of malnourished children. Doing home visits in the slums in Lima with teams of nutritionists and working with community clinics I got to see what the local clinics were like and I actually went to homes. Fieldwork when you get to go to people’s homes and see how they live permanently alters how you understand and design public health and research because you see that there is only one bed for that entire family who is living in a single room. From there I obtained my MHS degree in International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As part of my degree, I was required to do fieldwork so I went to Costa Rica and worked with refugees from Nicaragua for CARE. My work involved malnutrition in children, which sparked my interest in reproductive health as I saw how women with large families struggled to feed them and themselves. After I finished my internship, CARE hired me. I stayed for a year in Costa Rica working for the Ministry of Health. My first job after that was with a public health organization John Snow managing international programs and I realized I wanted to go back to graduate school and focus on research.

What global health experience do you cherish the most and why?

During different times of my life different things were really important. It was my work in Cambodia that has been the most powerful just because I saw the way the HIV epidemic evolved from being horrific with many people sick and with no treatment to help them to really containing the epidemic providing care to those who need it and now moving beyond it to address other health problems. There are people in Cambodia that I watched grow professionally that I either trained or trained at the same time as me. They are my peers and my students. Together we saw an incredible rebirth of a country as Cambodia emerged from the HIV epidemic and is growing socially and economically. We’ve had many UCLA students go to Cambodia through the Bixby Program and some of my doctoral students so it’s been a bilateral sharing. I am excited to now be directing a NIH Fogarty funded program with Cambodia now and welcoming our first new MS students in the Department of Epidemiology this Fall. I am trying to start a summer course there so UCLA students and fellows can go to Cambodia and study in the summer and get credit there and we had a pilot this summer with two Masters students from Epi and CHS who went – hopefully expanding our training to being bidirectional.

What classes do you currently teach?

In the spring, I teach EPI 270: Behavioral Epidemiology which is a very hands on course where we look at to design research and measure behaviors. It’s both a quantitative and qualitative class. Students work on one project and do different components of it through the quarter designing data collection instruments. In the fall, I teach Epi 232: Methods in Research on Marginalized and Hidden Populations where we study alternative approaches to sampling and working with hard to reach communities. I also teach and Advanced Seminar in HIV Methods Epi 291 and Doctoral Seminar Epi 292. I have taught Principles of Epidemiology (Epi 100) as well.

What research opportunities that you focus on are available for students and UCLA collaborators?

I have research opportunities in Cambodia, Brazil, and Peru for students interested in global health - mostly Ph.D. students from epidemiology but also some masters’ students from Epidemiology as well as Community Health Sciences and Biostatistics work on my studies. I have a number of local research projects students can work on mostly located at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the UCLA Vine Street Clinic related to HIV but also some other STIs. The best way to discover more about what projects I am working on is to take my classes so I get to know you and your skills.

Do you have any advice for current UCLA MPH candidates who are interested in pursuing a career in global health?

Work in the field! Don’t be afraid of things like Peace Corps and opportunities that involve longer-term commitment overseas. Also travel and living a little on the edge; 10 weeks in the summer doesn’t replace spending 6 months or a year in a county. Additionally, don’t feel rushed to try to get to a job. Think about what skills you actually have and make sure you’re goals are actually aligned with your skill set.