A YouTube ad during peak COVID didn’t just catch Vaishnave Parameswaran’s attention—it helped her find the lane where she wants to spend her career: behind the scenes, shaping the policies that shape people’s lives.

“I wanted to be in the health field, but I didn’t know if I wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “I didn’t really know what other options existed. Then I saw the YouTube ad and thought, ‘Oh, I didn’t know there was another way to work in health.’ I picked public health on a whim after that—and I ended up really liking it.”

Now in her final semester of Temple’s 4+1 program at the Barnett College of Public Health, Parameswaran will graduate in May with an MPH in Health Policy and Management. “I graduated in May with my bachelor’s and decided to continue on with the plus-one year,” she said. “So now I’m doing fieldwork and classes at the same time.”

As she moved through the curriculum, her interests increasingly gravitated toward health policy. “I liked the idea of working more behind the scenes with health policy and health systems,” she said.

That interest has taken concrete shape through her work as a Youth Advocacy Research Fellow with the Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Her thesis focuses on tobacco control, evaluating Pennsylvania’s Clean Indoor Air Act and comparing it to stronger policies in six other states. “My thesis is really about identifying where the law falls short,” she said, “and then using comparisons to show how we can improve our tobacco law.”

Temple’s location has also shaped how she understands public health in practice. “Temple feels like one of the best places to study public health because it’s so centered in the community,” she said. “It feels like what we’re learning actually connects to real situations where we live.”

Outside of the classroom, Parameswaran also works as a swim instructor, teaching mostly preschool-aged children. While the subject matter differs from policy research, she sees a clear connection. “You’re not just teaching kids how to swim—you’re teaching them how to be safe in the water,” she said. “That focus on prevention and safety really connects back to public health for me.”

Her perspective expanded further through a study abroad experience in South Korea, where she took public health courses and examined a very different healthcare system. “It was really interesting to compare the two,” she said. “In South Korea, the biggest challenges aren’t always health disparities—it’s often getting people to actually go to the doctor.” Mental health concerns, she noted, are also more prominent and remain stigmatized. “They approach public health in a very different way than we do,” she said.

Asked where her drive to help others comes from, Parameswaran pointed to her parents, who immigrated from Sri Lanka in the 1990s amid civil war and spent years helping others in the Tamil community navigate life in a new country. “I grew up watching my parents help people however they could,” she said. “I think seeing that made helping others feel natural to me.” 

Looking ahead, she hopes to remain in policy research and eventually focus on immigrant and South Asian communities. “A lot of people are afraid to say they’re immigrants right now,” she said, “and that often means their health gets pushed to the back burner. Finding ways to support people without putting them at risk feels important to me.”