For global health student Ruchita Balasubramanian, HSPH PhD 2027, her summer as a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow was a time of reflection – on her own cultural identity, her chosen field of study, and her plans for the future.
Ruchita spent the summer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, interning with the UN University International Institute for Global Health (UNU IIGH). Her research project there focused on digital health dynamics, specifically looking at immunization data in Malaysia and its gender biases with the goal of promoting more equitable data practices.
Ultimately, her experience was meaningful not just for what she learned through the research, but for how a new environment shifted her perspective on research itself.
“I’ve been trying to relish the growing pains of learning and appreciate the environment I am in and what it has to offer,” Ruchita wrote in her internship blog. “I’m excited for the opportunity to learn more about what I want out of my career and how I hope to contribute.”
She was particularly impacted by her colleagues at UNU IIGH, where she was struck by the number of women in leadership roles. Through conversations with her colleagues and mentors, Ruchita – an academic, and a particularly quantitative-focused one – began to reflect deeply on her role and the role of academia in impacting global health.
“I do think there is a positive role that academia can play through the imparting of strong, rigorous education in methods and skills,” she said. “However, the output of this space tends to be primarily academic articles, and what are the implications of that?”
Academic journal articles have a number of barriers to access, she noted, wondering whether the people with access to these articles are “the right people” to influence policy that can really impact people’s lives.
“Maybe instead of a focus on publishing in high-impact journals, we should consider publishing across multiple forms of content,” she said. “Perhaps the space I would thrive in is an implementation space, a space where you perform hypothesis driven work with the main deliverable being a community you liaise with.”
"Never move to a place for a week and call yourself an expert; never use your speech to put down or your institutional power to silence others. I think it’s possible for global health to be a collaborative effort, but the first step is to listen."
As she expanded her view of the role of global health research, Ruchita also stepped out of her quantitative research ‘comfort zone.’ During a health policy analysis workshop at the National Institute of Health, while learning about topics like digital health accessibility and improving women’s health screening programs, she was introduced to qualitative research methods like document analysis. And as part of her work with UNU IIGH, she conducted qualitative research including semi-structured interviews, giving her a new appreciation for human connection and communication as part of research.
Being in Malaysia also gave Ruchita an opportunity to explore her own identity, she said.
Kuala Lumpur was “a cosmopolitan melting pot with so many ethnic minorities, ranging from Tamilians (like me!), to Chinese, to Malaysians,” she wrote in her blog. “It was a beautiful hodgepodge of language, cuisine, religion, and culture alike… a place I immediately felt like I could belong in.”
In one blog post, she described a visit to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple complex in the mountains with a famous shrine dedicated to the Tamil god Murugan, and shared how the experience resonated with her as someone of Tamil heritage. Tamils, an ethnic group originally from southern India, are underrepresented in educational and government spaces throughout South Asia as well as in the US, where most Indian Americans are of North Indian descent.
“Some Tamilians I’ve met, much like me, seem to have a complicated relationship with their heritage,” Ruchita wrote. “My experience no longer felt frustrating and unique; instead I was part of a larger, complicated diaspora that I was only beginning to discover.”
She also shared insights on identity, representation, and privilege more broadly – and how they’re interconnected in their impact on the field of global health.
Throughout the summer, she was preoccupied with the challenge of decolonizing global health, a field she described as initially developed to serve colonizers that, to this day, often features donor-driven agendas without regard for local contexts. Through interviews with Kenyan and Ethiopian officials during her internship, Ruchita was confronted with how colonial legacies still shape global health practices.
“Are there ways we [native English-speaking researchers from the global north] can elevate historically repressed perspectives while still trying to provide a meaningful contribution?” she wrote. “I think this involves global north researchers broadening their horizons by working meaningfully within local context, learning new languages, and elevating global south collaborators in the context of research funding, mentorship, and publication.”
Again, colleagues at UNU IIGH helped guide her in thinking through these questions. In her final week of the internship, Ruchita's parting advice from her mentors was, "to listen."
"Never move to a place for a week and call yourself an expert; never use your speech to put down; never use your institutional power to silence others," she wrote as key takeaways in her final blog post. "I think it’s possible for global health to be a collaborative effort, but I think the first step towards that end, is to indeed, listen.”