On today's episode, Marian speaks with Dr. Melissa Hawkins. Dr. Hawkins is an epidemiologist, researcher, professor, and the Associate Chair of the Health Studies Department at American University. As a teenager, she was rejected from her top choice college, and thought that maybe academia wasn't for her. However, she allowed for the possibility that another school could be the right fit, and after obtaining a degree in anthropology, she stumbled into the field of public health. Decades later, she is an experienced public health researcher who is passionate about high quality epidemiological data. She has also been a witness to the many challenges that the field has experienced through Covid-19 and beyond. Dr. Hawkins discusses her research on health literacy and community health workers, how she taught her own kids about healthy eating, and her  ...