Hope for the Future

This week, Georgetown University alumna and former student of the course turned speaker, Luisa Ferrari (NHS’20, L’26), joined students in a conversation about finding your way in the health care field. Ferrari shared about her upbringing in Durham, North Carolina, being raised by two Duke University physicians, specializing in HIV research and pediatrics, who are dedicated global health professionals. During Ferrari’s childhood, their work brought the family to Tanzania for multiple summers to combat the HIV/AID crisis. Ferrari describes this experience as formative to her later professional interest in global health, citing that “[this experience] makes you passionate about helping other people”. 

For her, coming to Georgetown was an easy decision given its robust global health program and proximity to Washington, DC. While Ferrari initially started as a pre-medical student with intentions of attending medical school, experiences such as joining One Tent Health, volunteering at a local hospital, and finding herself engaged in her global health coursework led her to take up an internship on the Hill with Senator Bob Casey (D-PA)’s office, working on Medicare and Medicaid policy. She describes her experience on the Hill as formative to her desire to work in policy: “The swirl and pace and feeling of doing policy felt right…[my] ability to [make an] impact with people just clicked.” Ferrari concluded her time at Georgetown working, spending her senior fall semester as an intern at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa and her spring semester at the Centers for Disease Control Washington (CDCW) office. 

Graduating in May of 2020, Ferrari transitioned from an intern to a full-time employee of the CDCW, where she worked as a liaison between the Hill and the office. She was initially brought on to work on the tobacco team, but with the pandemic beginning in March 2020, she quickly transitioned to navigating the pandemic. Throughout her time at the CDCW, she managed data portfolios, state tribal health, and provided oversight on responding to inquiries from the Hill. During her time at CDCW, she relied on her connections built during her undergraduate degree to help guide her next steps. After speaking to professors and mentors, she began law school part-time and is set to graduate from Georgetown Law this summer.

However, the last nine months have been unexpected for Ferrari. Her position was included in the multitude of public health employees whose contracts were terminated by the Trump administration last spring. As a result, she joined the Parkinson’s Foundation as its senior policy director. 

Ferrari’s parting words and general ethos were ones of hope. Despite the lack of investment in public and global health from the current administration, Ferrari described feeling hopeful being in a classroom with the next generation of public health professionals. Reflecting on our class with her, I share this hopefulness for our future, inspired by a fellow Hoya. As for Ferrari, she carries with her a desire not to stop learning, one which she credits with “helping [her] find a path [she wasn’t] expecting.”

Isabel Estes (C’26) is an undergraduate student majoring in Spanish at Georgetown University.