Marieke Rosenbaum, V14, VG14 (MPH/MS)

What is your hometown and/or where did you spend your adolescent years?
I grew up in Jamaica Plain, a Boston neighborhood. 

What inspired you to become an educator or researcher?
I was inspired by a desire to provide students with positive, fun, and challenging early research experiences and an understanding of how research can intersect with practice and theory. 

What do you most enjoy about working at Cummings School?  
Cummings School is my third home! I love the students. I love the faculty. And the work is challenging.  

What is your passion (or some of your interests) academically or personally?
I enjoy the “fringe” topics, and the opportunities working in academia provides to study and understand them. We can learn from what is going on in the ecosystems around us, from soil, to rats, to human population distributions and disease and how they intersect. I believe that if we build infrastructure to monitor and understand the ecosystems around us, we will be more prepared to rapidly respond to global problems that arise, such as pandemics. After all, we are only just a phone call away from each other.

Can you share something about yourself that may be surprising or unexpected?
I grew up walking on stilts in parades and festivals with my mom and climbing trees with ropes and harnesses with my dad.

Do you have a pet or pets? Tell us about them.
No, initially because I was traveling so much for work. But since the pandemic, that has died down a bit, and my son, Zee, and I are gearing up to adopt a puppy! Let me know if you have any leads.