Health Policy Research Scholars is a national change leadership development opportunity for full-time, second-year doctoral students from historically marginalized backgrounds and/or populations underrepresented in specific doctoral disciplines. The Hastings Center Sadler Scholars are a select group of doctoral students with research interests in bioethics from racial or ethnic groups underrepresented in disciplines relevant to bioethics. ProFellow recently spoke with Opal Gay, an inspiring scholar who has participated in both programs, about their fellowship experiences.
Opal Gay (they/them) is a multi-fellowship winner and PhD candidate who is also both a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Scholar and a Sadler Scholar. Opal’s work focuses on promoting community wellness through research, advocacy, and public policy. They are currently enrolled at Georgia State University and finishing their PhD in sociology. Opal joins us to share about their fellowship experiences and how they’ve helped advance both their personal and professional aspirations.
Tell us about your background. What brought you to advocate for community wellness through research, advocacy, and public policy?
I’m from a small rural part of Alabama where I grew up seeing vast health disparities that were fueled by classist and racist state policies. I saw from an early age how social determinants of health, such as housing, transportation, access to healthy foods, and quality education, shape everyday lived experiences.
Though I’m first generation, I always knew that I wanted to go to college and dedicate my studies to a career that advanced equity. So when I entered Jacksonville State University in 2015 for my undergraduate degree, it wasn’t long before I found my way in the fields of political science and sociology. In this double major, I learned about the shape of our social structure, including our democratic federalist system and the policy process, and also how these phenomena shape and are shaped by cultural norms and social interactions.
During undergrad, I served as the President of the JSU Sociology Club and the JSU College Democrats, where I helped raise money for a variety of community health projects. Two of the most prominent were 1) hosting The Vagina Monologues on campus, where we had Lily Ledbetter as a guest speaker for gender equity, and 2) hosting a community-wide fundraiser for a domestic violence shelter in the city of Anniston.
During my undergraduate career, I was also involved in social and political community organizing beyond my studies. I was a statewide coordinator for the Feminist Majority Foundation to stop the passage of Amendment 2 in the state, which would criminalize abortion without consideration of rape, incest, and maternal health. I was also a lead organizer for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), where I helped educate Birmingham residents about the lack of abortion services across the state.
Near the end of my undergrad studies, I found myself desiring more training to advance my career as a community wellness organizer. That prompted my application to Georgia State University, where I began my sociology PhD in 2019.
Moving to Atlanta opened up an entirely new landscape for me as a community wellness organizer. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, I trained formally under a coalition of organizations that had been working for decades to decarcerate the city. Since then, I’ve been involved in multiple projects that advocate for public health solutions to support those most vulnerable to the carceral system.
For instance, I have worked as a Policy Research Fellow with both the Southern Center for Human Rights (2021–2022) and the Black Futurist Group (2022) to advocate for expanded funding for the Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative (PAD), which diverts individuals facing quality of life issues away from the carceral system and into institutions of care.
In 2021, you became a Health Policy Research Scholar. Tell us about this fellowship. How did you get involved and what does it entail?
What a life-changing opportunity this fellowship has been. I first heard about this program through my department at Georgia State. Our department chair shared the opportunity and I had been looking for an opportunity to more directly connect my research to policymakers. My HPRS experience has been one filled with community and leadership opportunities.
I’m currently in year three and have gained some of my best friends from this fellowship. I would say the largest strength of this fellowship is that I have been connected to a network of scholars across many different fields all working to advance a culture of health in their respective communities. I have had the opportunity to work alongside clinicians, lawyers, and other sociologists to tackle some of the most complex social issues.
We meet virtually every other week and receive an intimate look at how to connect our personal values to our work in health policy. That is, HPRS has adopted a model that incentivizes all of the scholars in the program to be themselves. I appreciate this so much because I feel like in my academic program, there is a lot of emphasis on doing things in a certain way to “be competitive” on the job market, regardless if it aligns with your personal politics. In contrast, HPRS has taught me that I shouldn’t want an opportunity that is antithetical to my values.
We receive training in policy memo writing and op-ed writing. I was actually able to publish my op-ed on police violence as a public health crisis in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution because of this opportunity.
We also meet every summer in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins for our summer institute convening, where we get to know each other and talk with policymakers and leading health policy practitioners in the field.
Most recently, I have been humbled by the opportunity to host our program’s inaugural podcast Connecting Our Roots, where I and invited HPRS scholars discuss our values concerning our research and policy work.
Since May 2023, you’ve also been a Hastings Center Sadler Scholar. What does this program involve and what encouraged you to apply?
I never quite thought of myself as someone who had anything to say about the ethics of healthcare. Yet, somehow, I applied to share this space regardless of that fact. I knew, at least, one thing for certain. I, alongside many other young, Black, queer, and trans people, am living in an intensified historical period of stigma and violence. And there is with great visibility (and at constant rates of speed) a culture that is rampantly against our existence.
The Hasting Center is the oldest institute of bioethics in the world, contributing to my health policy training and the moral and philosophical dimensions of how to care for vulnerable communities. I am honored that I was accepted to the Sadler Scholar program. I was advised to apply by a good friend of mine Dr. Oluyemi Farinu, who completed her Sadler Scholar the year before I applied.
This fellowship program includes the ability to have your work reviewed by leading scholars of bioethics working at the Center. All Sadler Scholars are required to lead a work-in-progress session which then receives critical feedback. We also have access to all of the talks and sessions made available virtually through the Center, including talks by bioethicists, as well as personalized training for scholars seeking to make their work intelligible to bioethics audiences.
What have been your biggest personal and professional takeaways from your fellowship experiences?
The answer to both questions for me is community. By nature, I love doing collaborative work. So making friends with other scholars who are just as passionate and forward-thinking as myself has given my career so much space to thrive. I now also have friends further along in their careers to provide mentorship and guidance as I build out my own path. Additionally, the genuine friendships I have developed will last a lifetime. It has been a blessing to have my community’s support as I navigate the difficult journey of getting my PhD.
Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring fellowship applicants?
Be yourself and lean into your passion when writing out applications! What drew you initially to get your graduate degree? Make sure to always keep note of this. My suggestion is to write it down and continue to check in with it. Know your values and stand for what feels just to you, even when it seems to go against the grain. Lastly, seek out fun and joy with the opportunity. Try to make friends and connections. My experience has been that my fellowship network has been more consequential than my actual PhD program. However, this is because I have put in the additional time to build relationships.
© 2024 ProFellow, LLC. All rights reserved.