convocation

Daphne Nakawesi Named 2023 Convocation Student Speaker

The co-founder and president of SPH’s Global Health Students Organization says mentorship was critical to her success as a student.

MPH candidate Daphne Nakawesi has been selected as the student speaker for the 2023 School of Public Health Convocation on May 20.

While working as a contact tracer at Boston University during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nakawesi received a serendipitous introduction to SPH by her colleagues—half of whom had either graduated from SPH or were currently enrolled. Her familiarity with the School and interest in global health led her to apply to the MPH program.

“I knew I wanted to do global health and I looked at the department, all the professors, and all the work that they were doing and it just looked like such a rich department that I knew I would thrive in, so it was a no-brainer to me. BUSPH was the only school I applied to,” says Nakawesi, who pursued a functional certificate in global health program design, monitoring, and evaluation and a context certificate in global health.

During her first semester at SPH, Nakawesi co-founded the Global Health Students Organization (GHSO). Under her leadership as president, GHSO presented at its first student organization fair, hosted its first general body meeting, coordinated its first events, and launched its monthly newsletter. She says the group aims to provide a platform for students to engage with the global health issues they care most about, as well as provide mentorship and networking opportunities for students to ask questions, get advice, and make connections.

Nakawesi is also part of the team at Duke Global Neurosurgery and Neurology (DGNN), which works to build the neurosurgical capacity of East Africa through its partnership with Mulago Hospital/Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Uganda. Having grown up in Uganda, their mission hits home she says. Strengthening health systems has become one of her passions within the broad field of global health, as has the movement to decolonize global health research.

Nakawesi does not yet know what the next chapter in her career will hold, and she no longer answers the question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” because of how much the answer has evolved over the course of her education at SPH. However, she has a lot to say about her chapter as a graduate student and shared some of her thoughts with SPH.

What skills from your time at SPH do you plan to take with you into the next phase of your career?

Everything. I think one of the biggest things SPH focuses on is teamwork, and rightfully so. In global health, literally all my classes have [involved] teamwork. That was a little bit strange at first—I didn’t understand why we always had to work in groups. Paradoxically, all the positions I’ve held have been as part of a team. In hindsight, I think it’s just that coming from backgrounds where the emphasis in school was on the individualist approach to success and now, all of a sudden, your academic success is reliant on your group members, it can be quite the switch, but it has been a beautiful experience of understanding how to navigate different perspectives and different personalities. Because teamwork is pertinent to any work in public health; this is why GHSO emphasizes collaboration.

You mentioned that the Department of Global Health was a large pull for you to come to SPH. Could you share what your experience has been with faculty from the department?

The department has truly been phenomenal. And this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but I would love to highlight two faculty members that have truly embodied dedication to student success. One, Dr. Monica Onyango. Dr. Onyango is the boss. I have such deep respect and admiration for her. She’s just been so amazing, not only as a professor, but as a mentor, and she’s also the faculty lead for [GHSO] so we work very closely together. And then, Dr. Veronika Wirtz—she’s an incredible, incredible teacher. The way they both think about global health, the work that they do, and how they integrate it into the student classroom experience is just so beautiful. They genuinely care about each student’s success, inside and outside the classroom. I have been so blessed to have both of them in my corner. 

I also particularly appreciated that the foundational class for GH students is Foundations of Global Health, which I took with Professor Wirtz. That class not only gives a big-picture perspective of what global health is and shouldn’t be, but it also allowed us to think critically and analyze the nuances of global health—all skills that are imperative if you are to do GH work.

What do you hope to share with your classmates in your convocation speech?

My top, top, top, top thing that I have valued the most out of BUSPH is mentorship. I cannot emphasize that enough. I would not have gotten to where I am [without it]—I mean, maybe I would have, but it would have been a struggle. The beauty and the power of mentorship for me, that has been life-changing.

I hope everyone that leaves BUSPH can get the idea—even if they’ve never had a mentor—that it’s a perfect time to ask yourself, how can I mentor someone else with what I have learned? I feel like this degree, and this will probably in my speech, is [about] responsibility. It’s not just about you, but who else can you impact? What can you share with the world because I believe everyone has something that they can share with the world.

I just thank God that I’m here. Honestly, that’s very important to me that I am here, and that God has allowed me to get to the end of this journey, as I wait for what happens next.