Selflessness is often described as putting others before yourself. While I believe that is true, I have learned that selflessness is also about using your unique abilities to make someone else's burden a little lighter, even when no one notices your contribution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked for Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), supporting Georgia's statewide public health response. Although I wasn't the clinician administering vaccines, I quickly realized that the data systems I managed had a direct impact on people's lives. Every dashboard, every quality check, and every report represented a person waiting for healthcare, transportation, food assistance, or reliable information. One experience changed the way I viewed service forever. Our team launched a program that provided financial incentives alongside COVID-19 vaccinations to reach underserved communities across Georgia. Many participants were experiencing homelessness, living in rural healthcare deserts, or struggling to afford basic necessities. My role was to monitor the program, evaluate its effectiveness, and ensure the data accurately reflected what communities were experiencing. As I analyzed survey responses and field reports, I saw stories behind the numbers. One participant shared that the incentive allowed them to purchase toiletries for their family, pay for transportation to a doctor's appointment, and afford prescription medication for their diabetes. Another explained that getting vaccinated meant protecting their family while also putting food on the table. Those stories reminded me that healthcare is never just about medicine. Sometimes helping someone means removing the barriers that keep them from receiving care in the first place. Using those insights, I developed analyses that demonstrated the program increased vaccination participation by 377% and helped justify continued investment in underserved communities. I also identified weaknesses in how we collected community feedback. Our surveys relied heavily on QR codes, unintentionally excluding many older adults, migrants, and unhoused individuals. Rather than accepting incomplete data, I recommended multilingual, in-person, phone, and paper surveys so more voices could be heard. For me, selflessness meant advocating for people who were too often overlooked, even if they never knew my name. Outside of my professional work, I continue to serve my community through volunteering. At the Atlanta Community Food Bank, I joined volunteers harvesting fresh produce that would be distributed to families experiencing food insecurity. I also volunteer with the City of Atlanta's Mayor's Office of International and Immigrant Affairs, where I read stories to elementary school students during AANHPI Heritage Month. While these moments may seem small compared to statewide public health initiatives, they reflect the same belief that meaningful change happens through consistent acts of care. These experiences have shaped the person I hope to become as I pursue a master's degree in Healthcare Management and Informatics. I want to build healthcare systems that are not only efficient, but equitable, ensuring that every person, regardless of income, language, or circumstance, has access to the care they deserve. To me, selflessness is not measured by recognition or sacrifice. It is measured by whether someone else's life is better because you chose to use your time, your knowledge, and your compassion in service of others.

When most people think of math, they picture formulas and equations. I think about people. I learned to love math because it taught me how to find meaning in complexity. It showed me that patterns exist even when situations feel chaotic, and that careful analysis can uncover solutions that improve lives. That lesson became real during my work supporting Georgia's statewide COVID-19 response. I managed and analyzed data representing more than 686,000 patient encounters across vaccination, health education, and community outreach programs. Every dataset represented thousands of individual stories. My responsibility was not simply to report numbers, but to ask better questions. Why were some communities consistently underserved? Which interventions actually increased vaccination rates? Where could we make the greatest impact? Math gave me the tools to answer those questions. By analyzing outcomes across more than a thousand vaccination events, I helped demonstrate that a $100 vaccine incentive increased participation by 377% while reinvesting more than $1 million into local communities. That evidence informed program strategy and expanded healthcare access for thousands of Georgians. The numbers were never the goal. They were the evidence that guided better decisions. What I appreciate most about math is its honesty. It encourages curiosity, tests assumptions, and requires conclusions to be supported by evidence. That mindset has shaped how I solve problems in every area of my life. This fall, I will begin a master's degree in Healthcare Management and Informatics, where I hope to strengthen healthcare data systems that support clinicians, administrators, and public health leaders. My goal is to build data infrastructure that is accurate, equitable, and actionable so organizations can make better decisions for the communities they serve. For me, math has never been just about solving equations. It is a way of understanding the world. Behind every dataset is a human story waiting to be understood, and the better we become at interpreting those stories, the better we can improve the systems that shape people's lives.

One of my favorite memories from volunteering wasn't during a large event or celebration. It was sitting in a children's reading circle at Atlanta's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Branch Library during AANHPI Heritage Month, reading stories alongside the City of Atlanta's Mayor's Office of International and Immigrant Affairs. Watching children light up as they heard stories that reflected cultures like their own reminded me that service is not always about solving the biggest problems. Sometimes it is about helping someone feel seen. That lesson has shaped every community I have served. Professionally, I spent more than four years with Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), helping support Georgia's public health response during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. While my role centered on monitoring, evaluation, and data systems, the work was never just about numbers. Every dashboard represented families searching for healthcare, older adults needing transportation to vaccination sites, and communities that had long experienced barriers to care. Our team partnered with more than 800 community organizations across Georgia to bring healthcare directly into neighborhoods that needed it most. Together, we helped deliver more than 686,000 vaccinations while expanding access to health education, benefits navigation, blood pressure screenings, HIV testing, and harm reduction services. My responsibility was to ensure that the data accurately reflected the people we served so leaders could make better decisions and resources reached the communities that needed them most. The most meaningful moments came from listening to community members. When I analyzed feedback from our vaccination incentive program, I discovered that many participants used the assistance to buy groceries, pay for transportation, or purchase prescription medications. Those findings reinforced something I had witnessed firsthand: improving health often means addressing everyday barriers that prevent people from accessing care. That insight shaped recommendations that strengthened future public health programming and reminded me that compassion and evidence should always work together. Outside of my career, I continue to serve in more personal ways. This spring, I volunteered with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, gleaning fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste so it could reach families experiencing food insecurity. Whether I am packing food, reading to children, or improving healthcare systems, I have learned that meaningful service begins with showing up consistently and treating every person with dignity. As I begin my master's degree in Healthcare Management and Informatics, I hope to continue building healthcare systems that are both efficient and equitable. My goal is to improve the data infrastructure that guides healthcare decisions so organizations can better identify unmet needs, reduce disparities, and invest resources where they will have the greatest impact. Community is built through thousands of small acts of care, each one telling someone, "You matter." I have been fortunate to serve in communities that taught me this truth, and I intend to spend my career paying that lesson forward.

When I think about whose story changed mine, I think about the people whose names I never learned. I think about the families we met during the Kentucky floods in 2022, standing outside homes soaked in mud and silence after losing nearly everything overnight. At the time, my coworker and I packed our company cargo van with emergency supplies and drove into communities devastated by the disaster as part of CORE’s flood response efforts. We were given procurement cards to purchase essential items for residents, but what stayed with me most was not the logistics. It was the people. I remember speaking with residents who apologized before accepting help, as if surviving a disaster was somehow an inconvenience to others. I remember community leaders who had lost homes themselves but still showed up every morning to organize Point of Distribution operations and help their neighbors. I remember how quickly people became invisible once the national headlines disappeared. That experience changed the way I see community work. I realized that strengthening communities is not just about responding to crises. It is about making sure people are still seen after everyone else walks away. Since then, I have tried to carry that lesson into every space I serve. This month, I volunteered with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, helping recover and glean food from a food show so it could be redirected to families instead of wasted. Most people walk past food waste without thinking twice about it. I notice how closely waste and hunger exist beside each other. In one part of a city, excess food is discarded because it is no longer profitable or visually perfect. In another, families skip meals and children rely on schools for consistent nutrition. That contradiction should not feel normal. Last year, during AANHPI Heritage Month, I partnered with the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of International and Immigrant Affairs to read to first graders at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. As the child of immigrants, I understand how powerful representation can be for young students growing up between cultures. I saw children become excited simply because they saw someone who looked like them standing at the front of the room, reading their stories out loud. Moments like that may seem small, but they shape confidence, belonging, and identity in ways that last for years. The problem I notice most in my community is that many people only invest in communities during moments of visibility. People rally during disasters, awareness months, or public campaigns, but long-term support is much harder to sustain. Communities need more than temporary attention. They need consistent investment, trust, and advocacy long after the spotlight fades. If I had the resources to act, I would build stronger systems connecting corporations, nonprofits, and local governments to underserved communities year-round, not only during emergencies. I want to combine my background in analytics, nonprofit work, and community engagement to improve how resources are distributed, how unmet needs are identified, and how organizations respond to vulnerable populations before crises escalate. The stories that changed me were not told on stages or in textbooks. They came from flood survivors loading supplies into their cars, volunteers sorting food into donation bins, and children smiling during story time at a public library. Those stories taught me that communities are strengthened when people choose to notice what others overlook, and then decide to stay.

My parents never had the opportunity to navigate higher education in the United States, so much of my educational journey has felt like learning an unfamiliar system while trying not to fall behind. As the daughter of Cambodian refugees, I grew up understanding sacrifice long before I understood college applications, financial aid, or professional networking. Higher education always represented hope in my family, but it also represented uncertainty. My father was raised by Buddhist monks in Cambodia before surviving the Khmer Rouge era, later serving as a border patrol agent and eventually rebuilding his life in the United States as a refugee. My parents worked tirelessly to create stability for our family, but like many immigrant households, survival often came before long-term educational planning. There was no roadmap for navigating college admissions, internships, graduate programs, or professional advancement. Much of what I know today came from observing, researching, asking questions, and teaching myself how to move through spaces that were never designed with families like mine in mind. Growing up between Cambodian traditions and American expectations often made me feel like an outsider in educational spaces. At school, I rarely saw Southeast Asian representation discussed beyond history textbooks centered on trauma. At home, I carried the responsibility of honoring my family’s sacrifices while also pursuing opportunities they never had access to themselves. For a long time, I felt pressure to succeed quietly, without asking for help or taking up too much space. Despite those challenges, my immigrant background became one of my greatest strengths. It taught me adaptability, empathy, and the importance of community. I learned how to navigate different environments while staying connected to my cultural identity. My experiences in Cambodian Buddhist communities, especially performing traditional blessing dances during Khmer New Year celebrations, helped me understand the importance of preserving culture while building new opportunities for future generations. Those moments reminded me that representation matters, especially for young people trying to see themselves reflected in leadership and professional spaces. Entering higher education as someone outside the system has also shaped my future goals. I am pursuing a master’s degree in healthcare management and informatics at Kennesaw State University because I want to help build healthcare systems that are more equitable, culturally informed, and accessible. As healthcare becomes increasingly driven by technology and artificial intelligence, I worry that underserved communities, particularly immigrant and refugee populations, will continue to be overlooked by systems built without their experiences in mind. My hope is to become someone who bridges that gap. I want to lead with both technical knowledge and cultural understanding so that healthcare innovation serves real people compassionately and ethically. Being a second-generation immigrant has taught me how much representation, empathy, and access can change a person’s future. Pursuing higher education is not only about creating stability for myself, it is about creating opportunities for the communities that shaped me and honoring the sacrifices that made my journey possible.

One of the most moving Taylor Swift performances to me is “Willow.” Beyond the beautiful melody and magical staging, the performance feels deeply personal, reflective, and hopeful. The glowing lights, flowing movement, and storytelling create a sense of searching for purpose and finding the courage to follow it. Every time I listen to it, I hear something new about my own journey. The lyric, “the more that you say, the less I know,” resonates with me in a way I did not fully understand until I began working in public health and healthcare data systems. I entered the field thinking answers would come easily through science and information. Instead, the deeper I worked in healthcare infrastructure, the more I realized how many gaps still exist, especially for underserved communities. There are gaps in access, gaps in communication, and gaps in the systems designed to support people. Rather than discouraging me, that realization motivated me to keep learning and continue pursuing graduate studies in Healthcare Management and Informatics. Another lyric that stays with me is, “I’m begging for you to take my hand.” To me, that line mirrors the work of helping communities navigate increasingly difficult healthcare environments. During my time supporting public health programs across Georgia, I saw how overwhelming healthcare systems can feel for families trying to access care, benefits, or reliable information. The work I want to do is not just about managing data. It is about building systems that help people feel guided instead of lost. The line, “Anywhere else is hollow,” also reflects something deeply personal for me. I spent years trying to figure out where I could make the greatest impact. Through my experiences in healthcare operations and data governance, I realized this work gives me a sense of purpose I cannot imagine finding elsewhere. Improving systems that affect real people and real communities feels meaningful in a way that goes beyond a career. What makes “Willow” especially emotional for me is that it reminds me of the people who shaped my path. Taylor describes being pulled toward love and connection, and I relate strongly to that. My partner, Matt, has been one of the biggest supporters of my educational journey. He encouraged me to believe I could pursue graduate school and leadership opportunities that once felt out of reach. In many ways, he “wrecked my plans” in the best possible sense because he helped me imagine a bigger future for myself. Taylor Swift’s performances are powerful because they allow listeners to connect their own stories to her music. “Willow” reminds me that growth often comes from uncertainty, that purpose can emerge from unexpected places, and that the right people can inspire us to become more than we originally planned to be.

From a young age, I was taught that education could change the direction of a family's future. As the daughter of Cambodian immigrants, I grew up watching my parents work tirelessly to create opportunities they never had themselves. Their sacrifices shaped the way I approach learning, service, and responsibility. Today, those values continue to guide me as I pursue a career at the intersection of healthcare, public health, and data systems. My path into STEM did not begin with technology. It began with biology and a desire to help people directly through medicine. I graduated from Georgia State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences on the honors track with a pre-medicine focus. While working in public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, I discovered that the biggest barriers to care were often not happening inside exam rooms. They were happening behind the scenes, within the systems responsible for tracking, organizing, and delivering care to communities. At CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort), I worked on programs supporting COVID-19 vaccinations, benefits navigation, and harm reduction efforts across Georgia. I helped manage reporting systems and dashboards that tracked healthcare access across more than 100 counties. During that work, I saw firsthand how inconsistent data and disconnected systems created real consequences for vulnerable communities. Numbers that looked correct on paper sometimes failed to reflect reality. Missing information, duplicated records, and conflicting definitions could affect how resources were distributed and how communities were served. That experience changed the direction of my career. I realized I was deeply interested in the systems that shape healthcare outcomes, especially for underserved populations. Over the past four years, I have worked to improve reporting accuracy, strengthen operational processes, and support decision-making through clearer and more reliable data. More importantly, I learned how powerful STEM can be when it is used to solve human problems with empathy and intention. As a woman of color in STEM, I know representation matters. Throughout my career, I have often found myself navigating spaces where women, especially Southeast Asian women, remain underrepresented in leadership and technical decision-making roles. Instead of discouraging me, those experiences motivated me to continue growing in this field. I want young women who look like me to see that there is space for them in healthcare analytics, informatics, and public health leadership. I am now pursuing graduate studies at Kennesaw State University to deepen my understanding of healthcare management and informatics. My long-term goal is to help healthcare organizations build systems that better serve diverse communities while also mentoring future women entering STEM careers. I hope to contribute to a future where healthcare decisions are informed not only by data, but by equity, cultural understanding, and compassion. STEM has given me the opportunity to combine curiosity with service. It has challenged me to think critically, lead confidently, and advocate for communities that are too often overlooked. This scholarship would not only support my education, it would support my continued mission to create systems that help people feel seen, represented, and cared for.

My relationship with Buddhism began long before I understood its teachings. My father was raised by Buddhist monks in Cambodia before surviving the Khmer Rouge era, serving as a border patrol agent, and eventually rebuilding his life as a refugee in the United States. When my parents raised me, Buddhism was not only something we practiced at the temple; it became the foundation of how we treated others, approached hardship, and found purpose. Some of my earliest memories are of wearing traditional Cambodian clothing at the temple in Connecticut, listening to rhythmic chants, and admiring murals that told the stories of the Buddha. Those experiences grounded me in a sense of identity and belonging. As a child of refugees growing up in America, I often felt caught between cultures. The temple became the place where I learned that compassion, humility, and mindfulness could connect people across generations. When my family later moved to Georgia, we found a Cambodian Buddhist community that helped us preserve our traditions far from home. My mother encouraged me to perform traditional Cambodian blessing dances during Khmer New Year celebrations at our temple. Dancing was more than a cultural performance to me. It became a way to honor my family’s survival, represent our heritage proudly, and help younger generations feel connected to their roots. Watching elders smile while children learned about Cambodian traditions reminded me how important community spaces are for healing and continuity. Buddhism continues to shape the way I approach both my personal life and professional goals. One teaching that deeply influences me is the importance of reducing suffering through compassion and understanding. In my career, I want to apply those values to healthcare systems and emerging technologies. I am pursuing a master’s degree in healthcare management and informatics at Kennesaw State University because I believe healthcare should be designed with empathy, accessibility, and cultural awareness at its core. As healthcare becomes increasingly driven by data, artificial intelligence, and automation, underserved communities are at risk of being overlooked. My experiences growing up in a Cambodian Buddhist household taught me the importance of listening carefully, respecting different lived experiences, and approaching people without judgment. I want to help create healthcare systems that serve diverse communities with dignity, especially immigrant, refugee, and historically underserved populations. After graduation, I hope to give back by advocating for equitable healthcare access and improving the systems that support vulnerable communities. I also want to continue supporting Cambodian Buddhist spaces that preserve culture and provide guidance for younger generations navigating identity and belonging. Buddhism has taught me that meaningful change begins with compassion in action. Through my education and future career, I hope to become someone who bridges technology, healthcare, and humanity in a way that genuinely improves people’s lives.

The data was there. It just wasn't telling us the truth. When I joined CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) in Atlanta, I was building dashboards to track COVID-19 vaccination access across 100 counties in Georgia. The numbers, on paper, looked fine. But when we pulled the records apart, we found inconsistencies between systems, duplicated entries, and definitions that didn't match across programs. In an operation serving over 686,000 patient encounters, those weren't just technical problems. They were gaps between who received care and who we thought received care. In public health, that gap costs lives. That moment is why I'm pursuing graduate study in healthcare management and informatics. Not because I stumbled into healthcare, but because four years of doing this work showed me exactly where it breaks, and what would be required to fix it. My path started in biology. I graduated from Georgia State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, honors track, with a pre-medicine focus. I expected to go into clinical care. What I discovered instead was that I cared more about the systems behind the care than the point of service itself. As an Operations Manager at CORE, I managed analytics for programs spanning COVID-19 vaccinations, benefits navigation, and harm reduction, tracking 45+ KPIs and producing reports used by federal partners at HHS and the Georgia Department of Public Health. Over four years, I improved reporting accuracy by 57% and reduced turnaround time by 60%, not as technical wins, but because faster, cleaner data meant more confident decisions for the communities we served. I co-authored a published learning brief on health equity and incentive-based vaccination programs across the state of Georgia because the work deserved to be documented and shared. What kept standing out was a gap between the data healthcare organizations had and the data they needed to act equitably. That gap is widest in communities that are already underserved. Closing it requires someone who understands both the technical architecture and the human stakes at once. That intersection is what my graduate studies at Kennesaw State University are designed to address. As a woman of color in this field, I've watched how health equity conversations often stop at outcomes without ever reaching the infrastructure layer. We talk about disparities in who gets diagnosed, who gets treated, and who survives. We don't talk often enough about who designed the data systems producing those statistics, whose populations they were built to capture, and whose they weren't. I want to work at that level. My goal is to help healthcare organizations, especially those serving high-need populations, build data governance frameworks that reflect every community they serve, not just the ones who historically have had a seat at the table. That means designing for equity from the start, mentoring the next generation of women and women of color into health informatics roles, and staying close enough to community health outcomes to remember why the work matters. Healthcare needs more women leading at the data infrastructure layer. I'm not waiting for an invitation. I'm building the skills to earn that seat, one system at a time.