Hello everyone! My name is Samah Ahmed and I am a senior here at Tulane studying public health with a minor in political science. My main interests lie in the relationship between socioeconomic status and health, the issue of health care access, and the intersectionality of these two things with the realms of policy-making and legality. After graduation, I hope to explore these interests further in law school.
Outside of school, I write for Tulane University’s online news publication, New Wave, writing articles about student life, lectures & events, and ongoing university research. I love taking fiction writing classes alongside my typical course load & honing my own storytelling skills. As a former president of the student group TEDxTU, I help Tulane undergraduates coordinate TEDx-style storytelling conferences each year. As a result, I am very excited to be interning with the New Orleans Abortion Fund (NOAF) this semester as a NOAF Outloud intern. I will be responsible for coordinating NOAF Outloud events, which are small, intimate spaces in which participants share stories about abortion and choice in an effort to de-stigmatize the act of abortion and normalize it as a safe and common medical procedure. Since reproductive health policy, like all policy, encompasses a complex intersection of various very personal factors such as race, class, and gender, I believe that storytelling can be used as a tool to provide critical insight into this complexity.
Through my internship this semester, I hope to gain a better understanding of how public health outcomes and civil rights legislation are intertwined, how local groups affect change, and how public health concerns can transcend political barriers. I look forward to sharing what I learn and experience at NOAF with you all this semester!