With Purpose And Preparation: Dr. Alison Brown’s Path to the NIH

If there’s one take-away from Dr. Alison Brown’s story, it’s to let curiosity be your guide.

Currently a program director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alison’s path to becoming a leader in nutrition policy and community nutrition started with the drive to do more. Then a research associate for the Center for Science and the Public Interest, Alison was looking at MBA programs initially. She thought she’d continue a career in nutrition advocacy, start her own business, or become a community nutrition educator. But then, she attended a graduate school fair where she met a representative from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University who shared a new possibility with her.

“The fact that the Friedman School is the only stand-alone graduate school of nutrition in the country,” says Alison. “And looking at the breadth of research that was being done, both from the international perspective and the domestic perspective, and the strong program in obesity prevention, that's what really drew me to the school.”

“It was June of 2012, and I was told there were just a few PhD spots available–for September 2012,” she says. “I pulled my application together, and wrote my essay in just one day.”

Why the change of heart? “At the time I was interested in the high rates of obesity and high prevalence among African American women. As an African American woman, I've had many experiences in my family and saw the struggle firsthand,” she says. “ I was always passionate about nutrition, but when I was looking at the research, I wanted to actually understand how these statistics were developed through  epidemiological methodology.” 

Alison joined the USDA Pre Doctoral Obesity Prevention Fellowship at the Friedman School, working under the mentorship of faculty like Dean Christina Economos. At that time, Dr. Economos was leading an effort called ChildObesity180 , a research initiative at Friedman that seeks to improve the health of all children through innovative research, multi-sector partnerships, and stakeholder networks.

“I liked how comprehensive their approach to obesity prevention was as opposed to being siloed in the nutrition education space. It was taking into consideration multiple stakeholders in the community and multiple drivers of obesity and not just looking at the issue through one lens ,” she says. “I really appreciated the diversity of research that they were involved with to tackle the obesity epidemic.”

What Alison quickly learned was that this comprehensive approach was just the Friedman way. She was encouraged to map coursework to her interests. She took courses across the University, participated in Tufts summer institute on civic engagement and cross-registered at Harvard School of Public Health. For this future policy leader, moving between institutions, schools, and disciplines was an advantage. “Boston really is an epicenter of academic excellence,” says Alison.  

This extended to opportunities outside of the classroom, too. At the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy School, Alison found incredible mentors who were welcoming, nurturing, sparked her intellectual curiosity, and encouraged her passion for helping others.  

“I was never discouraged from pursuing my community work,” says Alison, adding that one of her mentors, Associate Professor Sara Folta, helped her set up an independent study with a local hospital. In this independent study, Alison worked with master’s students from the nutrition education track. Under her leadership, they developed an education program for patients at Carney Hospital in Dorchester, serving an underserved community.  

​​Another significant experience for her was the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, a one-year program focused on health equity. Through this, she partnered with Healthworks Community Fitness Center, a non-profit gym in the Dorchester community. This fellowship allowed her to engage with dental and medical students from Tufts and students from other Boston institutions, fostering cross-disciplinary connections.

“The multiple stakeholders I worked with while in graduate school are comparable to the variety of researchers and stakeholders I interact with now at the NIH,” says Alison, who works for NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences.  

“I still collaborate with Friedman colleagues based on their expertise and different initiatives that I'm a part of here at NIH,” she says. To this day, “The Friedman network is indispensable and invaluable to the work that I do.”