The highly prestigious fellowship recognizes master’s degree students working to improve health policy throughout the United States. It supports a year-long post-graduate experience in Washington, D.C., where fellows engage with the private sector and with key offices in Congress and the Executive Branch, allowing fellows to work within the political system and learn how health policy is shaped.
“Being able to come to Brown and engage in all of the different experiences that I’ve been able to have here, to be able to be in the room with other prospective Winston Fellows and previous Fellows, made me realize that it was all worth it,” she said. “The Fellowship means that I did what I sought out to do when I was just a student at the Mayo Clinic doing research.”
Owens came to the School of Public Health as a Health Equity Scholar from Xavier University where she studied neuroscience. She currently serves as a health care policy graduate intern at UnitedHealth Group and as a research assistant at Brown’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research. Previously, she worked as a health policy intern with the Washington County Coalition for Children, where she advanced behavioral health equity in Rhode Island.
Owens begins her Fellowship after graduation, and is looking forward to working with people across the aisle. “I’m from the South, from Alabama, where I’ve had one side of the political spectrum, and now I’m in Rhode Island, where I’ve encountered another. So I’m really excited to be able to interact with a diverse array of stakeholders,” she said. “Just being able to learn from and interact with all of those people is what I’m really, really excited about. It’s one of my goals as a Winston Fellow.”
Owens cites her time at UnitedHealth Group as a clarifying experience that introduced her to different facets of health policy. “I’ve worked on the nonprofit side, lobbying and testifying at the RI State House for the Washington County Coalition for Children,” she said. “So being able to work with the private sector through UnitedHealth, who we’re often criticizing, has helped me to see other perspectives. Because, at the end of the day, we all just want to have the best health outcomes for as many people as possible.”
One of Owens’s mid-term goals is to become a health policy advisor in a congressional office. Longer-term, “I would love to be in a senior leadership position at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid,” she said, “because that’s where some of the most integral decisions about our health are made.”
