Q-and-A with Kathryn Thompson.

‘You Know You’re in a Good Place When You’re at Peace’
Kathryn Thompson, who joined SPH in September as an assistant professor of community health sciences, discusses the challenges of launching a career in academic research, and why she feels BU was the right place for her.
Just a few months into navigating her first role as an early-stage investigator, Kathryn Thompson is discovering the double-edged sword of being an independent researcher.
“You’re new and you’re in a space where you’re building up a team, but a lot of the weight and the pressure of some of these projects are still on your shoulders,” Thompson said, acknowledging the responsibility of doing most of her own data analysis and literature reviews, while finishing manuscripts for existing research and exploring avenues for future studies. “I’m still trying to find the balance,” she said with a short laugh.
Thompson graduated in May 2023 with her PhD in health services research from the Brown University School of Public Health. After a restorative summer off, she arrived at SPH in September as an assistant professor of community health sciences with a cross-disciplinary appointment in health policy and management.
She was born in a small town in Mississippi and grew up in central Florida, both areas where differences in maternal health outcomes are starkly defined by both race and income. In an interview with Brown University last spring, she noted the untimely and preventable death of an aunt in rural Mississippi as one of the catalysts prompting her undergraduate study in health sciences at the University of Central Florida, where she also earned a master’s in health services administration.
She was recently selected for the HIV Prevention Trial Network (HPTN) Scholar Program, a prestigious mentorship program for early-career scientists interested in HIV research. Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, professor and chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences, has centered HIV prevention in his own research portfolio and will be one of Thompson’s mentors in the program, along with Danielle Haley, an assistant professor of community health sciences. Haley previously worked on HPTN 064, a study designed to estimate the overall new HIV infection rate in women at risk for HIV in the US. In 2012, Haley’s HPTN research team found that HIV rates for Black women in parts of the US were significantly higher than previously estimated.
Over the 18 months of her HPTN program, which starts June 1, Thompson says that her mentors can help her hone the research interests that she first cultivated at UCF and expanded in her time at Brown. “Given my background and experiences, I gravitate towards datasets and research projects that focus on women and maternal health, particularly those living in high-poverty areas.”
Q&A
with Kathryn Thompson, assistant professor of community health sciences
How will the work conducted as part of the HPTN Scholar Program affect some of the community-focused research you had previously planned?
This program will be parallel to the community-focused research I had previously planned, and it gives me a chance to take a deeper dive into some skills that I haven’t yet acquired. This program allows me the opportunity to explore mixed methods—how you tie a quantitative and a qualitative piece together, and how they can inform each other to allow you to make certain inferences and further understand a research problem.
With my background, I’m quantitatively trained. I have interest in assessing disparities among Medicaid populations, Black pregnant persons, and persons living with HIV. So, how do I take what I’ve learned and connect it with where I want my research to go in the future? I believe you can conduct high-level analyses and generate statistics all day, but how does that relate to the communities we care about and what’s actually happening on the ground?
That is the connection that I would like to make. I think that it is important that we get into those communities. We need speak to individuals and add their perspectives. For individuals that are in Medicaid, we should be asking how do you perceive your care? How is your Medicaid program performing for you? Is it meeting your needs as an enrollee? Are you connected with the resources that Medicaid states that it provides for its beneficiaries? These are some of the questions I would like to ask and answer.
It seems as if you’re hoping to build a bridge between the systems-level approach and the things that affect people on a more granular, individual level.
Yes, I am hoping to build that bridge and be very intentional. I am hoping to leverage my dual appointment in order to do so. Currently, my primary appointment is in community health sciences (CHS) and I’m also in health policy and management (HLPM).
Yes, I do want to take a systems approach, to ultimately affect the individual. I am interested in Medicaid, for instance, because Medicaid funds nearly half the births in the entire United States, and 66 percent of births for Black pregnant persons. There are essentially 50 different Medicaid programs because each state Medicaid program is unique. I believe, with Medicaid, we have this unique ability to use Medicaid as a tool that can be flexible and individually tailored to the population it serves. You can enact a policy, but are these policies doing what they’re intended to do? Do we see the results of these policies reflected in the communities?
For example, we can have policies that intend to expand resources for beneficiaries to access housing, to be less food insecure, or to provide transportation to be able to access healthcare services. But are [state Medicaid programs] connecting individuals with these resources? How are they connecting them to these resources? And in return, is it improving health equity and are we able to positively impact disparity gaps? These are the questions I am interested in and for me, I need what I can learn from my colleagues in HLPM and CHS to reach my goal.
Did the genesis of this approach to research start during your time at Brown?
Yes, it did. I loved my program at Brown. There was so much I wanted to do during my time there, but I did not get the chance to. When entering the job market my advisor said, “Given what you are interested in, these are the type of questions you can ask as an independent researcher, as an early-stage investigator.” This advice was important as I was contemplating whether academia or industry would be the ideal setting for exploring these questions.
I ultimately decided to continue my research career in academia because I wanted to drive my own research agenda. The challenge now is to become a more intentional researcher by asking deep, more insightful questions. As told by a mentor of mine, you can ask 1,000 questions in public health, but not every question is worth asking!
What have you learned here at BUSPH in terms of how to build a career? What kind of guidance have you gotten from both advisors and peers?
So far, I have been given great advice. BUSPH is a treasure trove of knowledge, and every question I’ve posed has been met with remarkable kindness and understanding. I have received a lot of “We’re there too. We’re right there with you. And when you figure out the answers let us all know. Hah.”
The transition has been rewarding, albeit challenging, as I’ve shifted from the mindset of a PhD candidate to a faculty member. This role is highly self-driven—you control your schedule and your time, making it crucial to be strategic and productive. Much of the advice I received emphasized the importance of planning ahead. It’s vital to map out where you see yourself in the next one, two, or three years and to set specific goals you aim to achieve within those timeframes.
So, starting last fall, my plan included initiating the process to submit a K01 developmental award application within the next year. Additionally, despite being at BUSPH, there are many colleagues I haven’t met yet, so part of my plan involves reaching out to expand my network, find opportunities for collaboration, and forge meaningful relationships.
I also have ongoing projects from my time at Brown that need to be finalized and published. Lastly, I’m in the process of identifying funding opportunities to apply for future projects. Balancing all these elements is still a work in progress!
Some of the most valuable advice I received was to meticulously document insights from everyone. I asked questions such as, “How did you navigate your first year?” and “What was your approach and what did you learn from it?” I also asked about how they organized their schedules and managed their time. I’ve received excellent guidance from colleagues in CHS and HLPM, as well as from my mentors across the country.
Have the folks at the Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence come knocking on your door yet?
One of my primary mentors is Dr. Lois McCloskey, the director, who is absolutely outstanding. Having her as a connection has been incredibly valuable to me personally and professionally. I am currently working with her and I have spoken with her about the Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence, mainly about the opportunities of how I can be involved in the future. I also aspire to collaborate with another mentor I greatly admire, Dr. Yvette Cozier, and contribute to the Black Women’s Health Study. Currently, much of my work at BUSPH is associated with the Medicaid Policy Lab.
I am eager to learn from those around me and engage in meaningful collaborations. I anticipate making mistakes, but through these, I will discover better ways to approach and accomplish tasks, whatever they may be.
What was the defining thing that brought you to BUSPH and reinforced that this was the place for you?
To be honest, it was the people and conducting/participating in work that I could be proud of. BUSPH is rich in resources and renowned as a top R1 institution, producing exceptional research. However, I believe that truly great research thrives in environments that nurture creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration—and BUSPH excels in providing such an environment. The ability to work interdisciplinarily, collaborate across departments, and connect with diverse individuals is a valuable resource that often goes underappreciated.
For instance, when I chose to go to Brown, I felt completely at peace with my decision and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Similarly, when I decided to join the BUSPH faculty, I felt a strong sense of belonging, as if this was exactly where I was meant to be. BU and BUSPH offer incredible resources like the Medicaid Policy Lab, the Center for Anti-Racist Research, the Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence, and the Black Women’s Health Study. For me and the plans that I have, they are all fantastic opportunities, but the value of any position is deeply influenced by the environment and the people. If you don’t enjoy your surroundings or the people you work with, it begs the question: is it truly worth it?
I genuinely like the people I work with, the work they do, and the environment we share—it enriches me both personally and as a health services researcher. The right environment is crucial; if it were less conducive to my growth, achieving my goals would be significantly more challenging. I often say you know you’re in the right place when you feel at peace.
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