CHCI – PepsiCo Foundation Preventative Health Graduate Fellow
Hometown: Norwalk, California
School: University of Southern California
Degrees: M.S.W. Health
Placement: Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health
Stephanie Pozuelos was born in Guatemala, but arrived in Southern California at the age of one. She earned her B.S. in international health from Georgetown University in 2012. Later on, she received her master of social work from the University of Southern California in 2016.
Stephanie’s direct service experience has included working as an outreach dental health worker, patient navigator, graduate assistant, and residence manager. As an outreach worker in Orange County, she educated families and children on oral health, and provided them with resources. Later, she worked as a patient navigator for underserved cancer patients in South Los Angeles. During her time in graduate school, she worked on creating an internship program for undergraduate students to learn and gain exposure on what primary care is and the impact it has on communities. Her experience as a residence manager on Skid Row in Los Angeles has allowed her to see and understand the various issues that affect women experiencing homelessness, especially women who were undocumented and homeless. All of these experiences have quenched her thirst to understand more how both societal issues and health impacts affect her community.
As a health graduate fellow, Stephanie would like to incorporate her experiences in the field to help improve policies and bring awareness to certain issues that affect the community. Stephanie sees this as an opportunity to advocate and educate on issues that affect a person’s wellbeing as a whole.