Phiwinhlanhla Ndebele-Ngwenya
Phiwinhlanhla (Phiwie) majored in Biology and Mathematics at Philander Smith College. Originally from Zimbabwe, she developed a passion for health care through her experience as a teacher in rural Zimbabwe. As a teacher, she mentored the girls and local women, and she realized the huge lack of access to proper reproductive health care for the rural community. She is determined to break the systemic barriers against women and other underrepresented groups by increasing access to quality health care education. She is currently working as an Asset Management Analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Ndebele-Ngwenya worked on two projects during the SUMR program. She worked with Dr. Mary Boland, MA, MPHIL, PhD, FAMIA from the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Informatics, and investigated environmental factors that may dispose women to adverse pregnancy outcomes (e.g., stillbirth). For her second project with Dr Meeta Kerlin, MD, MSCE she systematically reviewed the literature to better understand the factors underlying the gap between actual practice and the evidentiary basis for care of patient with acute respiratory distress syndromes (ARDS).
Ndebele-Ngwenya was a social justice institute fellow at Philander Smith College, where she embraced the various facets of social equity and had a platform to continue to learn more about the health care disparities among rural women in not only the developing world but also in the developed world. She served as the Vice President of the International Student Organization on campus. She co-founded a project that empowered teenage mothers living and working on peasant farms in Zimbabwe with means of sustaining themselves and their children using income generating projects. The project was recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative University. She enjoys sight-seeing, dancing to Nigerian music with her friends, reading biographies, and binge- watching “The Office”.