Shannon Wu received a B.S. in Public Health from Santa Clara University in California in 2018. While completing her undergraduate studies in California, she gathered work experience through an awarded Valeriote Goldman Public Health Leadership internship in children’s health education and promotion. In addition to her internship, she gained experience in essential statistical skills to manage and analyze health science data to tackle paramount issues in public health. Driven by her experiences working with immigrant Latinx children in the Bay Area and her upbringing as a child of a Cambodian genocide survivor, she acknowledges how entangled external social, environmental, political and historical factors instigate negative health outcomes. In pursuing a Professional Master’s of Science in Biosciences and Health Policy at Rice University, she hopes to further explore the biological repercussions that ensue from social determinants of health and regulations in policies that govern the quality, accessibility, and development of health in underserved minority youth. In combining her biology training and public health background with her personal experiences, she aspires to reform current health policies through informed and evidence-based practices. Shannon secured an internship with Codexis in California.