Kiara Ortiz '24 vividly remembers picking up a neuroscience textbook in a thrift shop when she was a child. "I loved that the brain was a never-ending puzzle," she remembers. "I've been on that trajectory ever since."
Today, Kiara is a neuroscience major and public policy minor pursuing the pre-health track. For her, studying social science alongside STEM holds significant meaning. "The health care system needs a lot of improvement in terms of funding, access, and reliability," Kiara says. "I'm interested in advancing equity in the medical field and creating policies that allow for better patient care."
This past summer, Kiara worked full-time as an ophthalmic assistant at the nearby Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, a teaching hospital affiliated with Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine. "I was able to fully work with patients, help prepare for minor procedures like injections, scribe for the doctors, and ask questions while shadowing," Kiara says.
She was initially introduced to the opportunities for undergraduates at DHMC via the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center's Policy Research Shop, a faculty-mentored research enterprise that allows students to engage directly in the public policymaking processes in Vermont and New Hampshire. Through the Policy Research Shop, Kiara investigated maternity care deserts in rural New Hampshire and presented a policy report to physicians at DHMC. Now, she's partnering with a Dartmouth alumna at Harvard Medical School to study how the expansion of cash benefit assistance programs like SNAP can improve access to nutritional food for immigrants.
Kiara has taken her interest in policy to the highest levels of student leadership. She served in Dartmouth Student Government as a Senator and Chief of Staff before her peers elected her Student Body Vice President. "My philosophy as a leader has always been to make campus a safe space. For me, it's also about removing barriers to a fulfilling Dartmouth experience," she says, noting, among others, the student government's recent efforts to implement free teletherapy and laundry services for students.
The start of Kiara's tenure as Student Body Vice President aligns with that of Dartmouth's new President Sian Leah Beilock, a cog
nitive scientist who studies why people choke under pressure. "It's fantastic to have a woman president who is interested in the field of psychology," Kiara says. "I hope that her research translates into academic policies that benefit students. It's important that we hit the ground running in the fall."
Photograph by Don Hamerman
