Destiny Uwawuike
Destiny Uwawuike is a junior majoring in Health and Societies with a concentration in Race, Gender, and Health on the pre-med track at the University of Pennsylvania. She aims to understand the multifaceted nature of healthcare and the interplay between racial, socioeconomic, and educational factors on both community and individual health. As an aspiring physician, she hopes to use the knowledge she gains to be a valuable resource for people of all backgrounds.
As a SUMR scholar, Uwawuike worked on two projects. With Emily Ko, she developed a peer support program to provide education and increase the enrollment of underrepresented minorities with gynecologic cancer in clinical trials. Her second project, under the mentorship of Elizabeth G. Salazar, aimed to use a mixed-methods analysis to examine caregivers’ lived experiences of managing the financial impact of having a preterm infant and assess the efficacy of monthly cash transfers on caregiver psychological stress and ability to invest time in their infant’s care.
At Penn, Uwawuike is the Education Committee Project Director for Penn Reproductive Justice, an organization that advocates for equitable access to reproductive healthcare through community work and other initiatives. She is also a Personal Patient Navigator under the Center for Surgical Health, where she navigates patients through the perioperative continuum to improve the surgical health of under-resourced individuals. She further engages with the West Philadelphia community through volunteering at the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, teaching under the Educational Pipeline Program, and working in public school libraries as a Community Engagement Leader with Penn Libraries.