Ty Snarr ’20
Valpo’s bachelor of science in public health program first launched in the fall of 2016, coincidently graduating its first cohort of students at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Alumnus Ty Snarr ’20 was one of those students – and claims the interdisciplinary nature of Valpo’s undergraduate public health program is what prepared him to radiate care when his community needed him most.
“The faculty at Valpo – especially in the College of Nursing and Health Professions – come from a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. Whether you’re learning about the specific statistics of a population or going to do field work on a potential health assessment, they’re always putting their best foot forward,” Ty says. The integration of knowledge brought Ty in the classrooms with healthcare administration students, aspiring physician assistants, and several other future healthcare professionals. “We’re all going to be working together to mitigate diseases. Whether that’s from the clinical side, the preventative side, or even the policy side, the integrated learning that Valpo has to offer gives us a new and vital perspective into our futures [in healthcare].”
Going a step further, Ty also had the opportunity to go abroad on a service learning trip to Nicaragura, where he put all of the collaborative skills he learned in the classroom into practice. “I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to go down to Nicaragua and work in a community-based, participatory setting where we talk to the community, we assess the community, and see what they think their health priorities are,” Ty explains. “We find sustainable ways to really implement a healthcare solution that will serve the community long-term.”
Flash ahead to 2020, and Ty was leveraging his experiences here on campus and abroad to serve as a COVID-19 contact tracer in his hometown of Clinton County, Ohio – where he was able to witness the massive impact of his degree on a global scale. Later that year, he moved into a different role as a communicable disease intervention specialist for the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, a Native American commune in South Dakota.
“Valpo has really helped me find early success in my career. It’s hard to train for a specific job in public health, but my classes put me in a frame of mind on how to tackle a problem or disease outbreak through a public health lens,” Ty shares. “With both my jobs [at the time] being related to infectious diseases, my epidemiology class prepared me with a perspective to look at different populations and how diseases spread among them. I am able to understand research into why a disease spreads differently due to factors like socio-economic disparity and lower healthcare access and how these ideas are reflected in my work.”
We’re so proud of the dedication Ty and so many other public health professionals have shown to the bright futures of our communities. Thank you for working for the cause, not the applause, as you radiate care.