Program Manager Finds a Passion for Community Service in Purdue’s Online Master of Public Health

After Gabriella Quintana graduated from Purdue University in 2018 with a bachelor’s in public health, she moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and started a career in clinic services. A couple years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and her field was thrust into a crisis. Her undergraduate coursework had focused on epidemiology, a branch of health science focused on the distribution and control of disease in communities, so she understood how serious the pandemic was — and the role public health professionals played in mitigating the crisis. Seeing the pandemic’s effects made her think about her future trajectory in public health and how she could continue to help her city and community prepare for an uncertain future. 

Quintana knew that earning her master’s would help her expand her expertise, learn more about community and family health, and grow in her career. So, she started researching public health master’s programs. She wanted to continue working and living in the Bay Area, and she needed something that would fit within her budget and busy schedule, so she focused her search on online programs. Her mind immediately went to Purdue University’s online Master of Public Health (MPH), a virtual program offered by the same department she had earned her undergraduate degree from. 

“I already had a rapport with Purdue, so it made sense to go back,” Quintana said. “They had the most affordable program that I looked at, and it was fully online, and it had a concentration in family and community health, which fit with what I was interested in at the time.” 

After researching the program online, Quintana applied and was accepted. She quickly embraced the challenge of online education. It was different than her experience as an on-campus undergraduate student, but it fit perfectly into her busy life and work schedule. One of the highlights of her early experience was meeting other public health professionals from across the country, including a few classmates who were also from California. These connections helped her expand her professional network and learn new things about the field. 

“In one of my classes, I had a classmate doing public health work in Santa Barbara, so we would talk about public health policy at the state level and what was going on in California broadly,” Quintana said. “And then I had other classmates who were from multiple time zones away, so I got to see public health from all of these perspectives.” 

A policy buff, Quintana likes to stay on top of public health policies and advocacy work in her home state and beyond. Through Purdue’s program, she was able to put her policy knowledge to the test by completing hands-on projects. For one of her projects, she collaborated with other classmates from California on creating a health program for California’s Kern County, a relatively rural area known for its agricultural production. The health program her team came up with was aimed at providing pre-natal care for people living in rural areas, and it required Quintana to tap into her existing public health knowledge as well as the expertise of her teammates. Together, they created a project with real-world impact.  

“That course gave me a lot of models and strategies for developing health programs,” Quintana said. “It was a really cool experience.” 

Over the course of her program, Quintana worked to develop her leadership skills and soak up as much information as possible. She knew that earning a master’s would open new doors and give her the confidence and skillset she needed to lead her community in times of crisis and create positive change. She has long had a passion for providing healthcare to underserved communities — it’s a mission she holds close to her heart, and one that kept her motivated while she was working hard on her master’s. Now that she’s graduated, she can see how her hard work has paid off.  

“Graduation was such an exciting feeling,” Quintana said. “It was hard to believe I was getting my weekends and evenings back, but it eventually hit that I could finally focus on resting and applying my degree.” 

Quintana is currently working as a program manager in Contra Costa County’s Health Care for the Homeless Program. This new role fits her goals perfectly — she gets to make a difference in the lives of people in her community every day. In the future, she sees herself doing more health program development and leadership while continuing to collaborate with her workplace’s community partners, including the Bay Area Rescue Mission, Hijas del Campo and the Trinity Center. 

“The focus Purdue’s program has on community health is incredible and fit with my career goals so well,” Quintana said. “At Purdue, you do hands-on learning, and that’s exactly what I wanted. Being able to apply what you’ve learned is invaluable.”  

To learn more about Purdue’s online Master of Public Health program, please visit the program’s webpage.