Public and One Health celebrates first two grads

Though it just launched its undergraduate degree last fall, Auburn’s Public and One Health (PAOH) program has already graduated its first two students.  

Mikailie Caulder and Amatallah Saulawa recently earned bachelor’s degrees in PAOH from the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). “They are both amazing students, just incredibly smart and hard-working,” said Dr. Kelley Steury, program co-director. “I can’t wait to see what they do.” 

Caring for rural, maternal, child health 

A native of Weaver, Alabama, Caulder has spent the past year working with Auburn’s Rural Health Initiative in rural Chambers County, Alabama, where she created and promoted community health programs. She also interned with the university’s equestrian team, performing alternative therapies on horses to ensure peak performance. 

Caulder has researched clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing, with Associate Professor Brian Counterman in the College of Sciences and Mathematics and the role of olfaction — the sense of smell — in canine navigation and behavior with CVM’s Dr. Stacey Sullivan.  

Caulder, whose interest in public health began during the COVID-19 pandemic, was a PAOH minor when Steury told her the new major would be launching in 2024. She began taking more PAOH courses and considered changing her major from pre-veterinary genetics, but in her senior year, she realized she had completed enough coursework to earn both degrees.  

Now, Caulder, who has focused her interest on maternal and child health disparities, is enrolled in a Master of Public Health (MPH) program with the goal of eventually joining the U.S. Public Health Service. 

“Mikailie is extremely bright and articulate,” Steury said. “I know she’s thought about going into maternal health or attending veterinary school, but I’m thrilled she’s decided to pursue an MPH in global health.”  

From Tuskegee to Nigeria 

Saulawa has two hometowns: Tuskegee, Alabama, and Katsina, Nigeria. 

“Most of my family lives in Nigeria, and I love visiting because I get to connect with my roots,” she said. 

Despite the distance and differences between Nigeria and Tuskegee, Saulawa sees several similarities — a realization that sparked her interest in public health. 

“In both Tuskegee and Katsina, where many of my family members were diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer, people face challenges accessing health care due to a lack of personnel, cost barriers and a nonresponsive health care system,” she said. “Moving between two countries taught me to think of health challenges holistically, considering the broad factors that shape health status worldwide, no matter the country.”   

Saulawa enrolled in the PAOH minor as a first-year student, but when she heard rumors it would be a major, she began asking for more information.  

“I’m not even sure I was supposed to know at the time,” she said. “I enrolled in the major as soon as it was offered and ended up being the first one to add it.” 

Saulawa has completed undergraduate research on vaccines with the Harrison College of Pharmacy’s Salisa Westrick and is assisting alumnus Regan Moss in studying menstruation management in prisons and the challenges facing college student-caregivers. 

She also completed a research program at the University of Pennsylvania, interned at Massachusetts’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program and is currently working at HEART to Grow, an organization promoting sexual and reproductive health in Muslim communities.  

As she advanced through the PAOH program, Saulawa, who double-majored in international studies, began to specialize in studying reproductive health.  

“Volunteering at Rape Counselors of East Alabama and the PERIOD organization were key in helping me narrow my focus,” she said. “Research into reproductive health care remains scant, and I want to work to correct the current state of affairs.” 

A Fulbright Award winner, Saulawa has decided for now to continue her research and her work with HEART to Grow. No matter where she eventually ends up, Steury knows Saulawa will make a difference. 

“Amatallah has a very unique point of view, and whenever she would speak up in class, she would teach all of us something — including me,” said Steury. “She has experience working in so many different settings, I think she’s going to come out on top, no matter what.” 

‘Discovery’ major 

When Steury and co-director Andrea Perkins began the PAOH program, they pictured future alumni working in a wide range of fields, including environmental health, epidemiology and health promotion and policy. They’re thrilled to see their first two graduates have identified meaningful areas of interest.  

“That’s the nature of this degree — one word I like to use is that it’s a ‘discovery’ major,” Steury said. “There are so many different areas they can go into, so students figure out what they’re interested in. It’s such a broad range of possibilities.” 

Steury also said the global concept of One Health, the guiding principle of the program, emphasizes not just the intersection of human, animal and environmental health, but the need for communication and coordination across various health-related disciplines.   

“Since health is so collaborative, it’s vital we draw on expertise from different areas, and these two students have really grasped that,” Steury said. “Amatallah was saying that one of her favorite classes was Disease Ecology in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment. Even though she’s not necessarily interested in animal health, she loved learning about the complex disease and human or animal interactions within ecosystems.”  

Caulder echoed the benefits of One Health’s transdisciplinary nature. While her area of interest is maternal health, she benefitted from the experience of working alongside veterinarians extensively as an undergraduate. 

“My college career hasn’t been linear, and I’ve dabbled in different paths throughout the years,” she said. “The One Health aspect of the degree program has helped me recognize that the health of animals is just as important as the health of their human counterparts.”