Nora Collins is a student at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C. She is looking to further her awareness about the social determinants of health. She is passionate about investigating the intersections of analytic, scientific discoveries with social justice, public policy, and journalism.

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Nora has written for her school newspaper, The Wicket, as a staff writer for two years and started her own Health & Science column with the goal of getting her peers more engaged in their personal well-being. She was the editor of the Sports & Health page and hoped to incorporate her experiences and discoveries from working with Urban Health Media Project.

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Along with journalism, Nora is interested in social justice issues; she authored a 12-page research paper on the disparities in Maryland’s pretrial detention system, which highlighted the systemic inequalities which adversely affect people of color and minorities. Her interest in public policy came from attending a summer course on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Princeton University, where she led a presentation on genetic testing and consumer awareness. She interned with the FDA’s Oncology Center and continued investigating current consumer-minded regulatory standards.

 

Nora is also an active advocate for the special needs community. She has a twin brother who has special needs, and is passionate about increasing levels of community inclusion. She volunteers for Sports Plus and KEEN, which provide sports activities and social programs for children and young adults with mild-to-moderate autistic spectrum disorders and other disabilities, and she was a member of her school’s “Best Buddies” club. Nora worked to extend this sense of inclusion while interning for UHMP, where she seeked to help students develop confidence in not only their own writing but also in their voices and ability to enact tangible change.