Web Exclusives: Service points

June 2002

HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

Through her work at the Sinai Community Institute (www.sinai.org), Rodlescia Sneed ’00 improves child immunization rates and serves as a community health educator in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood.

Having joined the Institute originally as a Princeton Project 55 fellow, she is currently program coordinator for the North Lawndale Immunization Program that seeks to improve the health of this primarily African-American community.

Graduating with an AB in molecular biology and a thesis completed in a drosophila (fruit fly) lab, Sneed sees many connections between her studies at Princeton and her current work.

"I’ve always felt that my life’s mission was to help bring about change in the health of others," she says. "I chose molecular biology as a major because I thought that science was going to be the means through which I would fulfill that mission. I’ve come to recognize that science and medicine are only pieces of the puzzle."

Sneed hopes to bring about change in communities with an eventual Ph.D. and a career in public health, with a focus in women and children’s health.

By Jenny Lindquist Orten