Emily Christina Davis

Emily is a second-year student in the Sociomedical Sciences Department with a concentration in infectious disease epidemiology. Prior to Mailman, Emily completed her undergraduate studies at Duke University and published her thesis in 2019— “Global Health Diplomacy: The Ethical and Legal Implications on the Protection of Health Workers”. In her thesis, Emily drew connections between her experiences in global health diplomacy, her interest in the ethics of war, and prior experience working in international humanitarian law in Geneva, Switzerland.

Her interest in infectious disease began while working in global health diplomacy research at the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health at Vanderbilt University as an undergraduate. Emily has worked extensively with historical records related to the creation and implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program.

Following her graduation from Duke, Emily transitioned into a clinical role as an ophthalmic technician in rural Tennessee and Kentucky. Her experience as a care provider inspired Emily to pursue graduate studies in public health to understand barriers to healthcare delivery including how to improve provider-patient communication.

Emily was drawn to the work of Trauma-Free NYC due to its focus on adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and how they impact health. She hopes the organization can improve clinical competency in two main ways: giving providers tools to approach the challenges of trauma-informed care so that they can improve as clinicians, and helping patients feel more empowered to recognize the impact of past experiences on their health and have a larger role in the creation of their own care plan.

For fun, Emily likes to write music, go for long runs and she is on an Olympic lifting team in NYC. She tries to spend as much time as she can with her family in Nashville, including her younger brother and her dog, Bella (who sadly couldn’t make the trip to NYC).