Yuliana López

Yuliana joined Health & Medicine this summer as a Policy Research Analyst. She is a recent graduate of Middlebury College where she earned a degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry with a minor in Global Health.Yuliana’s achievements include being named a BOLD Women’s Leadership Network Scholar and a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Female Scholar of the Year Semifinalist. She is also a Gates Millennium Scholar and a recipient of a Posse Leadership Scholarship.

What interested you in working at Health & Medicine?
The powerful and needed mission of Health & Medicine drove me to check out the work being done here. Growing up in the South Side of Chicago, I was quick to realize the structural barriers placed in front of my family and community that impeded us from safe and healthy lives. I have been searching for an organization that TRULY believes health care is a human right and challenges what is at the root of our fragmented public health state–structural racism. I came to Health & Medicine to learn from public health professionals and contribute to the push towards a healthy, equitable city.

What sort of things do you like to do outside of work?
I am grateful to be in a space like Health & Medicine where my experience is valued as much as anything else. To be in a space where I get to think about health and challenge our city to move towards health equity is POWER; a great power that I hope to share and build with other young adults from underserved and marginalized communities in Chicago.

My greatest passion is mentoring and giving back to the community that raised me. It took a village, and I will work for that village. Whether it is translating/interpreting documents for families, talking about scholarships and college resources to students and parents, or discussing public health issues in our community, I am out in the community when I am not at work downtown.

What did you want to be when you were a child?
I wanted to be hard-working and determined like my dad. (That man really defined hard work from 9 PM to 9 AM working in a factory and working all morning as a automechanic.) I wanted to be compassionate and passionate like my mother. I wanted to be resilient like my community. I wanted to make my city proud. All of these statements still hold true to this day.