{"id":231985,"date":"2016-07-12T06:06:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=231985"},"modified":"2016-07-12T06:06:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:06:01","slug":"gms-scholar-undergoes-cdc-internship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/gms-scholar-undergoes-cdc-internship\/","title":{"rendered":"GMS Scholar undergoes CDC internship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The CNMI\u2019s first Gates Millennium Scholar, Samantha A\u2019ani Birmingham-Babauta,\u00a0recently graduated from California State University, Northridge, where she studied Kinesiology with a concentration in Applied Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle.\u00a0(Gustavo Lopez\u200b)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI\u2019s first Gates Millennium Scholar, Samantha A\u2019ani Birmingham-Babauta, is spending her summer as an intern under the Center for Disease Control\u2019s Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program. The program consists of six internship opportunities creating a public health workplace experience to increase student interest in minority health, according to the program\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

As an intern under the Maternal Child Health Careers and the Research Initiative for Student Enhancement department, she will be focusing on eliminating health disparities and promotion healthy equity. <\/p>\n

The 22-year-old recently graduated from California State University, Northridge, where she studied Kinesiology with a concentration in Applied Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have always been avid about fitness and healthy living since being in middle school. I played tons of sports throughout high school, and have been working in the fitness industry since I was 17,\u201d the Marianas High School alumna told Saipan Tribune. \u201c\u2026 I found the field of Kinesiology and discovered that my calling was to use exercise as both preventative healthcare and prescribed medicine to those with chronic diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

In preparation for the intensive program, Birmingham-Babauta also spent time training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and the Center of Disease Control office in Atlanta, Georgia. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019m coming from a kinesiology background wanting to pursue a Masters in Public Health, I thought this program would be advantageous to my future goals,\u201d she explained. Birmingham-Babauta will take part in tasks ranging from education and outreach to policy advocacy and program development. <\/p>\n

She wants to remind the islands’ youth that success will follow passion. \u201cIf the passion is there, then the success will follow. Don\u2019t expect to have a smooth journey, and stay open minded to change,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She added that her future plans include returning home to give back to the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully that is sooner that later, but currently, I am focused on obtaining the most experience and knowledge to be able to give back in a way that is effective in addressing the health disparities in our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI\u2019s first Gates Millennium Scholar, Samantha A\u2019ani Birmingham-Babauta, is spending her summer as an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":231991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12448,5355,3556,12449],"class_list":["post-231985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-california-state-university","tag-cdc","tag-disease-control","tag-gates-millennium-scholar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}