In 2014, Jackson Higginbottom was a pre-medical student in Oklahoma City and, to supplement his studies, he wanted to volunteer at a free clinic in the community. Higginbottom's classmates all recommended the same place: Manos Juntas.
Manos Juntas, which means "hands together" in Spanish, is a nonprofit clinic in Oklahoma City providing free primary and specialty care to uninsured and underserved patients.
"This was my first experience working directly with people who came from different backgrounds, spoke different languages, and had different life experiences," said Higginbottom '20 M.P.H, program manager of the Public Health Data Science and Data Equity initiative at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and assistant director of the new Peter Salovey and Marta Moret Data Science Fellows Program. "Working in these free clinics, you hear your patients' stories and challenges."
Now, Higginbottom is running the clinic where his passion for public health started - and using his experience at Yale as both a student and staffer to directly help the community he grew up in.
