Meet Roxanne Mitchell: Adell Y. Smith HANYS Healthcare Leadership Scholarship Recipient

ALBANY, N.Y. (July 24, 2022) – Roxanne Mitchell has worked tirelessly to pursue her education to become a leader in health policy. And her family has, too— her mother worked nearly daily 16-hour shifts to help Mitchell complete her undergraduate degree program. Now enrolled in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at UAlbany, Mitchell is tackling important public health problems that matter most to her.

"Health policy, mental health, gun violence and food insecurity are the issues that most pique my attention because I have a personal connection to each of them," Mitchell explains. "As I move forward in my career, I want to have the chance to alter or come up with new ways for people of color to understand and work with health policies."

Mitchell was awarded the Adell Y. Smith HANYS Healthcare Leadership Scholarship, which supports graduate students who are interested in pursuing careers in healthcare management. The scholarship was founded by Smith and supported by the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS). Smith served as an executive assistant at  HANYS from 1988 until her passing in 2020. She had wanted to see more diversity in healthcare leadership positions and decided to establish a scholarship at the UAlbany School of Public Health to fuel that change.

"A scholarship in and of itself means a lot to me and my family, but a public health scholarship means so much more," says Mitchell. "Scholarships are like opportunities, and this one will help me achieve my goals and make a difference."

Now as she enters the second year of her MPH program, Mitchell is interning at the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute to meet the program's 720-hour internship component. She is conducting in-depth research to help better to understand whether the introduction of new drugs and treatments causes behavioral changes in individuals from various cohorts.

"It has been so satisfying to learn skills that will enable me to contribute to better health practices and results in the future," says Mitchell, who is not set on one specific career path. She is open to taking on various opportunities to explore how they may help her to make a difference. "We frequently use 'Band-Aids' to treat health problems rather than addressing the fundamental cause, which is why it is so important to be in the field of public health. I'd like to be able to put programs in place that make it easier for people to get healthcare and to reach their health goals."