Alumni Spotlight: Meet Allyn Auslander, an Alumna Advocating for Global Representation in Research

Graduation Date: 2021

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology

What inspired you to pursue a career in population and public health sciences?

As an undergraduate student I double majored in mathematics and statistics, but at the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with that. After I graduated, I went backpacking for about a year and a half. While traveling, I had a fortuitous meeting with a group of students from the UK who told me about an organization they were working with in the Philippines addressing childhood nutrition. I then lived in the rural Philippines for 6 months with a local family, showering with buckets of cold water. I loved every second of that experience and found that I like being in places that people wouldn’t usually seek out. I started to think about what professions combined math, statistics, and travel. I had to google the definition of epidemiology—I had never heard of it. That is how I fell into this work. After those experiences, I applied and received my Master of Public Health degree from UCLA in epidemiology.

Why did you choose to attend USC?

After I graduated, I got my first job at Operation Smile which is where I still work today. We have

a big project called the International Family Study which looks at the environmental and genetic risk factors for cleft lip and palate. The study is a partnership between Operation Smile, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and USC and is focused on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  While working on this project, I was fortunate to have great mentors, a few of whom are professors at USC. Since, I was already doing analytical work and contributing to the papers. They encouraged me to apply to the doctoral program in epidemiology. Dr. Roberta McKean-Cowdin was gracious enough to agree to be my advisor on my research, which was all based on my work at Operation Smile. I received great support from USC and my mentors who really believed in the mission of the project and the purpose.

What is your area of interest in population and public health sciences?

I’m such a believer in quality and translatable research. In an age of misinformation and confusing information, there is a wide range in the quality of research out there. Even for someone who was trained to critically think while reading papers, it gets hard. I love the idea of helping people improve their health through the provision of quality research, specifically in LMICs. I’m also a big believer in representation in research. This is why I love Operation Smile and the work I do. We are ensuring that people with the highest need are represented in the body of literature that’s hopefully going to one day solve their challenges.

What would you like for students to know about careers in global health?

It’s important to focus on everyone’s strengths and recognize the value they bring to the table. There’s a recurring conversation about decolonizing global health and ensuring that decision makers come from the right places. At Operation Smile, we have a federated model so each of the 36 countries we operate in, has its own organization (ex. Operation Smile Vietnam) run by the local team. Most of the decision-making power lies within the country, which is where I believe it should be.

Coming from a high-income country, our role can be ancillary. So right now, research is a support service because training and education on it can be hard to come by. It’s been amazing to work with my international colleagues who already know what questions to ask, have the right hypotheses, and then we provide support based on their needs to conduct and publish research. The key is to look for true partnerships and go into this work with humility and understanding that what we may perceive as the right way to do things, can sometimes be irrelevant in the rest of the world especially when its’s not realistic or reasonable.

What do you enjoy the most about your work?

Without a doubt, for me it’s the people. I’ve been really fortunate with the leadership and mentors at Operation Smile. Every single day I am excited to have meetings my colleagues around the world—sometimes in the morning I’m on a call with someone in Rwanda, and then I move on to Senegal, and then at night we’re in Philippines or India because of the time differences.

What was your most impactful educational experience at USC?

When I had a question or challenge, the span of intellect and willingness of everyone to help me not only shaped my work but also my experience. I’m a big ‘question asker’ for better or worse, so I had many people to learn from and who supported me.  They painstakingly went through code with me and double-checked my analysis. As a student, I also had many resources available to me!

Can you share more about your environmental and genetic risk factor research for cleft lip and palette?

I have such big hopes and dreams for this project. There is a clear genetic driver in 30% of cleft lip and palate cases, but the rest are not well understood— attributed to a combination of environmental and genetic risk factors. It’s well established in the literature that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for cleft lip and palate, yet most women in LMICs do not smoke. Research on cooking smoke has not been as widely studied because most research is not being conducted where people are cooking over open stoves. So, one paper I wrote looked at the risk of cleft and smoke from cooking on open stoves.  We found there was a 50% increased risk of cleft for women who reported exposure to smoke from cooking compared to a 30% increase from cigarette smoke (from the literature). If you don’t conduct research in these countries, then these findings will not be reflected in the literature. My passion for this project is to ensure the people who are most in need of prevention are represented in that conversation. In the future, with technology and medical advances, I believe we will be able to prevent cleft, lip, and palate.

What advice do you have for students?

Expose yourself to as many things as you can. You have no idea where they’ll lead you. I’m a perfect example of that. Experiences—good, bad, relevant, and irrelevant—are the most valuable thing in the world. What you may perceive as an irrelevant experience may expose you to new ideas that change your course— it’s a big part of why I am where I am.  My other advice specifically for global health work—as someone who was trained and spends my time in Los Angeles, a very high-income area, is to have humility and learn from the people around you. We have a biased view of how things are “supposed” to be but that doesn’t make us “right”- listen more than you talk and learn as much as you can.