As a company working at the junction of several industries– including design, public health, and social entrepreneurship– we embrace the variety of expertises on our team and the way that our varied backgrounds benefit our work.
In a recent episode of the Public Health Careers podcast, hosted by our dear friend Omari Richins, MPH, OSB Founder Meaghan Kennedy discusses her own professional and academic background, including a Bachelors in Physiology from Alma College, an MPH from Emory University, and Master’s level Industrial Design coursework from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Omari Richins is a public health professional, as well as a social entrepreneur. As Founder and CEO of The Public Health Millennial, Omari builds resources to help public health students and professionals thrive and define meaningful career paths for themselves. Omari is a passionate supporter of health equity, and strives to empower Black and other marginalized communities through his work in public health.
Meaghan and Omari explore the impactful innovation that can come out of a blended public health and human-centered design practice, and how such an approach can maximize positive social impact. As Meaghan discusses, design-thinking is an invaluable tool to agile, iterative problem solving, which can have significant impact when applied to system-level issues.
For those potentially seeking a career in public health, Meaghan imparts advice on how to broaden their own perspectives to create meaningful change:
“Constantly challenge: what are the borders of public health? And be ready to think public health is much more expansive than we might be presented.
You know, when I went into public health, I tried to understand what I should be as a public health professional, and then when I went into design, I was like, ‘I don't know how these two things are, I need to make these things fit nicely together.’
And what I realized is the conflict is the beauty. So the fact that sometimes things don't fit so nicely together is where new things happen. So embrace the conflict.”
As a team, we celebrate our diversity in experiences, and strive to constantly be learning– an approach that has hugely benefited our ability to enable innovation across sectors and industries.
Tune in at the link above to hear more Meaghan’s insights on the rich benefits of a multidisciplinary problem solving approach, and her journey to create change through founding OSB!
Written by Amy Qu, Innovation Strategist
