Show Notes
In this episode, Sujani sits down with a friend from her MPH program, Sameena Vadivelu, to speak about a day in the life of a program evaluator. Sameena has worked as a program evaluator in a local health unit and takes us through how she became interested in the field, her job application journey, what a day looks like, and more.
You’ll Learn
- What is program evaluation? And how it compared to what she had anticipated it to be.
- How Sameena became interested in program evaluation.
- Challenges she had during job searching.
- A day in the life of a program evaluator at a local public health unit – the responsibilities of the role.
- The biggest challenges about her work
- Skills someone considering specializing in program evaluation should know/do/be prepared for (i.e. software, certification).
- A moment Sameena felt most inspired.
Today’s Guest
Sameena Vadivelu
Sameena Vadivelu holds a Masters degree in Public Health (MPH) and an Honours Bachelor of Science degree specializing in Integrative Biology and Psychology. She’s currently a Program Evaluation Consultant at the Workers Safety and Insurance Board. In her previous role she was a Program Evaluator at a local public health unit. She has over five years of experience in evaluation. In this role she primarily supported the environmental health and infectious diseases teams and has provided support on various planning and evaluation projects. Prior to this she worked at a health authority in Labrador. In this role she worked closely with public health nurses to develop policies around contact tracing for sexually transmitted infections.
Resources
- Blog post mentioned in the podcast:
To apply or not to apply…that is the question!, by Sameena Vadivelu
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